
Class _ £1 / /l 
Book, K ^ 

Copyright N° _ 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 









The 

QONFLICT with 






6~^\ 



gPAIN 



A HISTORY OF THE WAR 



BASED UPON OFFICIAL REPORTS AND DESCRIPTIONS 
OF EYE-WITNESSES. 

ILLUSTRATED WITH ORIGINAL DRAWINGS FROM 

PHOTOGRAPHS AND SKETCHES MADE 

ON THE SCENE OF ACTION. 

By Henry F. Keenan 

(Dunois) 

Author of "Trajan," "The Aliens," "The Iron Game," 

Etc., Etc. 



P. W. Zl EGLER & CO. 

PHILADELPHIA AND CHICAGO. 

L . 






23132 

Copyright X 898. 
By Henry F. Keenan. 
TWO QOPIES REC IVtO, 



I JAN 1 11899 \ 



PREFACE. 

IN the ensuing pages the reader will find the record of one of the most 
astonishing transformations in the history of peoples. The plain tale 
as set forth rivals the enchantments of feudal conquest, when the world 
made war a part of its daily life. For though in point of time, the con- 
flict with Spain embraced but the duration of three months, the prodigies 
performed by our fleets rival a century's activities in other times. In an 
hour almost, one of our fleets conquered an Oriental empire — dating back 
coevally with the settlement of our own states; at our very doors, in the 
sea which has witnessed colossal struggles of most of the powers of 
Christendom, our navy in three hours ended the domination of the once- 
world power. And if our armies did not equal in these achievements, the 
marvels of the fleets, they performed wherever called upon, all that a 
heroic soldiery was ever asked to do. The tale as it unrolls itself from 
the far-off shores of the Philippines and the coral reefs of the Caribbean, 
takes on the texture of the most absorbingly thrilling romance, for it in- 
volves the dauntless heroism of the knight pledged to deeds of emprise 
and armies consecrated to peril in every form known in war. It reveals 
a galaxy of heroes added to the long list whose names shine in the golden 
legend of our creation and maintenance as a state. From this tale, the 
citizen of the republic will rise with a new confidence in our system, a 
new hope in our destiny. For from the opening guns at Manila to the 
last volley at Santiago, there was not a man under the flag who did not. 
and does not deserve well, of his country. As much as possible I have 
striven to let the heroes who wrought so grandly tell the story of their 
achievements in their own words. From the captivating confidences of 
the Hero Hobson to the caustic comment of General Miles, the reader 
will find side by side with the author's deductions and appreciations, the 
testimony of every actor in the grandiose drama which constitutes the 
miraculous conquest of three months. 

There is no equal period that has a tale of such results to tell ; no epic 
or imagining of what fleets and armies have done that exceeds the in- 
trepidity of our fleets and soldiery. Nor can any other war, from the 
excursions of the crusaders, to the campaign in Cuba, equal the unvary- 
ing chivalry of the great men who wrought in the republic's honor. For 

.at was never before known in war, both the chiefs of the soldiery cap- 

00 



VI 



PREFACE. 



tured by our fleets and armies, returned to their homes, testifying in pub 
lie documents to the chivalrous magnanimity of their treatment, by the 
men who had conquered them. It is a stirring tale which tells itself and 
has little need of the artifices of rhetoric — for it recounts valor in every 
conceivable stress, the qualities in short, which make up a race worthy of 
its destiny. It is peculiarly mete that freemen battling for the republic, 
should be the heroes of the scene, for while no commanding figures were 
discerned for public acclamation, the private soldier, the men behind the 
guns became the country's admiration, the world's wonder. Instead of 
one Napoleon, or a score of renowned marshals, every man that held a 
bayonet illustrated the valor of knighthood, the quality of the freemen 
in armor. An army raised in a day, achieved the work, hardly hoped for 
from the veterans of a score of campaigns. Wonder books and fiction 
cannot exceed in the marvelous, the plain unvarnished tale of a conflict, 
ended almost as soon as begun— so swiftl} r accomplished indeed, that the 
spectators do not yet realize its momentous significance, its unparalleled 
completeness. 




CONTENTS. 



BOOK ONE. 



CHAPTER I. 

Part I.— Relates how War Reveals Peoples to Themselves— The Early Victories of the 
Republic— Presents the Influence of the Civil War upon Youth— Gives Types 
of Americanism and our Race Name-Shows War as a Passion— Tells of the 
Veterans of the Civil War-^Congress and the Press-The President's Opposition 
to War— The Destruction of the Maine— Describes the De Lome Incident— The 
Diplomatic Correspondence— De Lome's Successor— The "Jingoes"— 
" Yellow " Journalism— States that Dispassionate Deliberation was Impossible 
—That the Majority of the People were Opposed to War— Takes up Cuban 
Sentiment-Commercial Interests— Cuban Bonds— Filibustering. 17 

Part II -Treats of the Purpose of the War-The British Press-British Estimate of 
the Yankees-Rumors of European Intervention-The Proffer of British Alli- 
ance-European Sympathy for Spain-European Distrust of the United States- 
Attitude of the British Liberals-Enmity of the "Saturday Review "-What 
British Alliance Really Meant-The Conversion of Depew-Arguments of the 
Tempters-Carlyle's Estimate of his Countrymen-An Outspoken British 
Statesman and Editor 

CHAPTER II. 

PART I -Shows how Spain received the Ultimatum of the United States-The 
Monarchy in no condition to Wage War-The Spectre of "Carlism "-Deca- 
dence of the Monarchy-Spain's Great Captains-Her Audacious Enterpnses- 
Her Activities Dependent on Foreigners-British Alliance-Spam s Fleets- 
Tells how Europe sees the United States through British Yrm-Mm 
Spain Seeking Help • 

PART II.-Contains an account of Spain under Charles V-Her WMh^oMbUai 
from Britain-Early British Intrigue-Spain's Naval ^ni-Her Co^ng 
System-ShowshowsheTreatsherSailors-Givesher Naval Nomenclature ...60 

CHAPTER III. „ . . ftt . Tomc8 

Wherein our Former Relations with Spain are Recounted-Other Topics 
Treated are: The Conquistadores-Comparison of Forces-Span . s *ava 
Strength-Warships of the Republic-An Auxiliary Navy-The Hornets of 

VII 



OTH CONTENTS. 

the Sea — Encounter of the " St. Paul " and the " Terror" — Early Navies of 
the Republic — Naval Warfare in 1812 — Britain Mistress of the Seas — Naval 
Duels — Comparison of Armaments — Juggling Tonnage Figures — The Man 
Behind the Gun — Naval Heroes of the Civil War — Life on a Modern Battle- 
ship — The Agonizing Expectancy — The Fierce Joy of Battle — Heroism of the 
Crews 96 

CHAPTER IV. 

In which the Influence of the "Yellow" Press is Depicted — Also Relates 
the President's call for Troops and the Marvelous Response — Likewise the 
Capture of Prizes — The Making of Soldiers from Recruits — The Lessons of the 
Civil War — Treats of Politics in War — How the West Point Graduates were 
Ignored — The Man With a "Pull " — Moving the Legions— The Devotion and 
Constancy of the Soldiers — " The Rough Riders" — Presents Roosevelt, an In- 
teresting Figure. 85 



BOOK TWO. 



CHAPTER I. 

Part I. — Introduces Commodore George Dewey and the Asiatic Squadron — Dewey 
Fitting Out His Ships— Dewey Waiting for Orders— Gives the Fateful Message — 
Dewey's Comment and Vessels Comprising his Fleet — Describes the City 
of Manila— Cavite Arsenal — Corregidor — Dewey's Captains — The Spanish 
Strength— States what Battle Reveals — Dewey's Precautions — Shows Admiral 
Montojo opening the Combat — The "Olympia" Replying — Dewey's Tactics— 
The Coolness of the Commanders — The Duel Between the Flagships — What an 
"Eight-Incher" Did and the Spanish Admiral's Story of the Battle— Tells 
How Gridley's Guns were Worked — How the Spanish Admiral Transferred 
His Flag— How the "Baltimore" Led the Second Attack— Describes the 
" Austria " Wrecked— The Defiance of the " Ulloa "—The Joy of the Crews— 
What the Men in the Turrets do— The Audacious " Petrel"— The Victors on 
Errands of Mercy 99 

Part II.— Details the Plight of the Queen Regent— Spanish Self-Restraint— Shows 
Spain Ready for Peace— Carlist Plotters— Life in Gay Madrid— Tells of the 
Sickness of the King — Describes a Legacy of Hatred— The Spanish Court — The 
Spanish Cortes— Shows Spain as only a Shadow of Former Greatness— Tells of 
Canovas del Castillo— The Short-lived Democracy and Shows the Obverse of 
the Picture 133 

Part III— Contains a Description of the Philippines— Their Area— Population— Dis- 
covery and Conquest — Diverse Tribes— Amazing Fertility of the Soil — The 
Negritos— The Malays— The Peculiar Treatment of Criminals— Relates how 
Schooled by Priests they Become Assassins — A Scientist's Story — Introduces 
the Jesuits— Mohammedans— Pirates — Colonizing— The Malay Proa — Sulu 
Homes— Dress— Amusements and Passions— Food Products— The " Queen of 
Fruits." 147 



CONTENTS. Ii 

CHAPTER II. 

Refers to Our Vulnerable Sea-Coast— The Ability of Our Fleets— A Source 
of Anxiety — The Battleship Oregon— Fears for the Noble Ship— Creating an Aux- 
iliary Navy — The Puzzle of the " Cape Verde Fleet— Solves the Mystery- 
Shows the Spanish Admiral Bottled Up— Introduces a Strangely Daring Youth 
— Richmond P. Hobson — Describes his Audacious Plan — Details of the Scheme 
— The Collier Merrimac — The Enterprise— An Ensign's Heroism— The Call for 
Volunteers — The Devoted Seven— Watching the Expedition— The Painful 
Suspense — The Flag of Truce — The Heroes Safe — As Prisoners of War— Ah 
Exchanged — Hero Worship — Hobson's Modest Behaviour — Relates his Praise 
for the Jackies, and his Story of the Merrimac's Suicide 161 

CHAPTER III. 

Part I After Alluding to the Santiago " Nightmare," Describes the Destruction of 
Cervera's Fleet — The Warning Cry — The Admiral's Ship— The " Iowa " fight- 
ing the "Teresa" — Now the "Oquendo" — The Apparition of the "Colon" 
— Titanic Fury of the Combat — The Hadean Atmosphere — The Dreaded De- 
stroyers — How the "Gloucester" Marked its Prey — The Stately " Vizcaya" — 
A Duel to the Death — Spain's Proud Cruisers on the Rocks — The Inhumanity 
ot the Cubans— The Soul-Stirring Devotion of the Yankee Crews— The Prof- 
fer of Captain Eulate's Sword — Gives the Noble Sailor's Reply — Recounts the 
Difficulties of a Historian — The Story of a Wide-Awake Young Lad— Other 
Details of the Fight 191 

Part II Unfolds the Romance that Envelops Santiago — Exploits the "Texas"— 
Gives Captain Philip's Epilogue — Also Admiral Schley's Digest of the Battle 
— Also the Epic of the "Oregon" — Contains Ensign Powell's Story — Relates 
the Intrepidity of the "Gloucester " — Other Incidents of the Thrilling Drama 
—And what Captain Evans Regarded as his First Duty— Besides Telling how 
Turret Guns are Worked 209 

CHAPTER IV. 

Part I Describes the Difficulty of Accounting Rationally for the Effect and Causes of 
Certain Battles — Trials of the Santiago Expedition — The Strength of the City — 
The First Landing — Camp McCaUa — The Marine Corps— The First Sanguiuaiy 
Encounter — What a Correspondent Saw — And Heard — The Irksomeness of 
Blockading— What the "Winslow" Did— A Withering Blast of Shells- 
Ensign Bagley's Death — Baiquiri — Debarking an Army — A Foodless Army— 
How the Rough Riders Set Out— An Ambush in the Chapparal — The Equa- 
nimity of the Troops— Coolness of the Leaders — The Cry of Mutilation— The 
"Devil's Claw " — Poisonous Cacti — Uncanny Things — The Cuban Contingent 
— The Ingenious Yankee Soldier. 243 

PART II Affords A View of Florida's Sand Wastes aud Tawny Coasts— The Troops 
Eager for War — Life on a Transport — Leaving the Squalors of Tampa — An Im- 
posing Armada — Fair Cuba at Last — Describes the Delight of the Seaworn 
Soldiers — An Untried Undertaking — Skirmishes — The Natural Defenses of 
Santiago — The Invading Column — Blockhouses and Wire Barricades — Squad 
Fights — The Work of the Regulars— Quotes Active Observers of the Operations 
"—Mentions the Diversity of Comment — Tells of General Linares in a Trap — 



s CONTENTS. 

The Fifth Day— The 6ry of Hunger— Our Thin Line— A Whimsical Purpose- 
General Shaf ter's Objective— St. James of Cuba— Environed in Beauty. 269. 

Part III.— Details the Advance of General Young's Troops from Baiquiri— Their 
Progress— The Implacable Resistance of Earth and Wood— The Exuberance of 
the " Rough Riders "—The Story of Sevilla— Compares the Arms of the Oppos- 
ing Forces— States the Objective Point of the Army— Carries the Reader to El 
Caney— Relates the Onset of the " Regulars"— Tells the Story of Capron's 
Merciless Guns-Of Haskell's Dash Into the Pitiless Hail— Describes 
Phenomena of the Battlefield— The Anxiety to be on the Line of Fire 291 

Pakt IV Illustrates Engineering Difficulties Before Santiago— Shows a Panorama 
of the City Itself— Describes El Morro— Other Defences of Santiago— Some 
Railroads— Spanish Neglect of Sanitation— Introduces Absorbing Episodes- 
Personal Recollections of the Thirty-six Hours Fighting— The Singing of 
Bullets— The Wire Barricades— The Planting of the Colors— The Silencing of 
Batteries— The Fury of the Fighting— Excerpts from Reports of Commanders 
—Comment— Describes the " Regulars "—Tells the Deserter's Story— Defines 
Bravery — Likewise Cowardice 302 

Pabt V.— Touches upon the Humorous Side of Grave Ordeals— Relates the Story of 
El Pozo— Fittingly Eulogizes a Brilliant Staff Officer— Tells how a Block- 
house was Taken— Paints the "Tramp" Aspect of the Troops— Describes a 
Cactus Jungle— Touches Up the Cubanos— Enlarges Upon the Loathly Land 
Crab— Gives British Impressions at El Caney 335 

CHAPTER V. 

Part L— Exploits the "Red Cross" Society— Its Work— Miss Clara Barton— Gives 
the Origin of the Society— Its Founder— Its Emblem— The "Seneca" and 
" Concha " Horrors— Presents Criticisms on the Medical Bureau— The Evasive 
Letter of the Secretary of War— A Scathing Reply— The Soldier's Story- 
Tells of Peculations, Large and Small— Of Selling Supplies— Of the Camp at 
Tampa 358 

Part II. — Introduces the Red Cross Steamer " State of Texas " and its Samaritan 
Crew and describes the Advancement of Medical Science— What the Soldier was 
Told— Field Hospitals— Stretcher Squads— First Dressings— New Methods... 573 

CHAPTER VI. 

Part I.— Sets Forth the Royalist Tendencies of Cuba's Capital City— Slavery in 
Cuba, How Born In War it Lived in Conquest— The Impress of One Man Upon 
Havana— Tacon— Havanese Architecture— The Student Confused— Population 
of Cuba— Distinctions of Birth— Cuba Librists— Cuba, the Fairest of Tropic 
Climes— Early Government— Climate Influence Races— Defines the Cubano— 
The Autonomist Group— Shafter's Cuban Allies— The Dream of the Hierarchy 
— Shows Havana Under the Blockade 379 

Part II. — Contains Disquisitions on the Political Repose of Cuba— An Anarchic 
Interlude— Cespedes— The Virginius Affair— Cuba for Sale— The Rebellion of 
1895— Cause of the Revolt— Agricultural Decay— Spain's Unwisdom- 
Campos— Weyler's Regime— Gomez's Methods— The Inutile " Trochas"— The 
" Reconcentrado " System— What a "Yellow" Journal Did— Presents the 
11 Maine " Calamity as Fortuitous— The Cuban Vendetta — Maceo — His Instinct 
for Leadership— His Fate— The Cuban as an Ally 393 



CONTENTS. 

BOOK THREE. 



CHAPTER I. 

PART I. — Depicts Dewey, the Man for the Hour — Gives his Novitiate under Farra^ut 
— Career During the Civil War — Subsequent Career — Promotions — Reluctanl 
Acceptance of the Asiatic Billet — Personality — Forecastle Criticism— The Jack 
Tar's Story — Presents Dewey's Incomparable Equipoise as both Warrior and 
Statesman— Relates the Story of the Wbite Flag at Cavite— August; \s Ridiculous 
Proclamation— Rivera's Treaty with Aguinaldo— Sets Forth tbe Bumptious 
Meddlings of the German Admiral— And How Dewey Resented bis [nsolence 
— Also tbe Disingenuousuess of tbe British Admiral 411 

PART II.— SHOWS the Subtle Ease with which the War for " Humanity" Became a 
War for Conquest— Details the Vociferous Demands for "Expansion "—Ami 
Gives an Insight into tbe Character of Aguinaldo, tbe Bragadocio Insurgent 
Leader— It Portrays the Ineradicable Savagery of the Man— His Ambit ions 
Pretensions— His Grotesque Pranks— And Presents a Faithful Picture of his 
Tatterdemalion Followers— It Recounts the Gathering and Despatching of 
Troops to Reinforce the Fleet at Manila— The Jocose Pillaging of tbe Treasury 
in Fitting Out tbe Expedition— Tbe Rain-Driven Ingenuity of the Soldiers in 
Front of Manila— The Attack on aud Surrender of Manila 135 

Part III.— Contains an Account of the Capture of the Ladrones, Beside which Fiction 
is Pale and Nerveless— Tbe Author also Philosophizes on this Incident in the 
Manila Escapade— Describes tbe Discovery of the Group--States Why the 
Epithet ' ' Thieves " was Applied to the Islands— And Supplies other Informa- 
tion of Value Regarding them and the Islanders 460 

CHAPTER II. 

Illustrates the Island of Porto Rico as a Land of Philosophic Repose- 
States How an Almost Orphic Voice Demanded its Conquest— Compares the 
Island to Naboth's Vineyard— Proclaimes tbe "Jingoes' " Greed— Recites the 
Adventures of a Young Officer whose Devoir was to Spy out the Land— The 
Refrains of the Press— The Bouffe Conquest— The Comments of a Porto 
Rican 469 

CHAPTER III. 

Explains the Responsibilities of .the Administration after Santiago— Gives 
the President's Tranquilizing Proclamation— Mentions the Fantastic Cam- 
paign of Threats— Shows how Spain Swallowed her Pride— Invoked tbe Aid of 
France— Obtained the President's Ear— Signed the Memorable Protocol— The 
Chapter Contains also the Full Text of the Fateful Paper, and Disquisitions on 
Various Allied Matters * 79 

CHAPTER IV. 

Eulogizes the Admirable Group whose Prescience Perplexed and Discom- 
fited the Enemy— Unfolds the Scope of the " War Hoard "—The Comprehen- 
sive Range of its Functions— Quotes a High Authority on Awards and Promo- 
tions-Defines "Prize Money" and " Bounty Money "-States the Methods 



XII 



CONTENTS. 



of their Distribution — Approximate Amounts Due Various Commanders and 
Ships 487 

CHAPTER V. 

Part I, — Marks the Volume Encyclopaedic, Containing as it does the Official Reports 
of American and Spanish Naval Commanders — It Embraces Admiral Dewey's 
Story of Manila — Admiral Montojo's Rej)ort to the Spanish Minister of Marine 
— The Eeport of tho Diario de Manila — Admiral Sampson's Report — Com- 
modore Schley's Report — Captain Evan's Report — Captain Cook's Report — 
Captain Philip's Report — Captain Clark's Report — Captain Taylor's Report — 
Captain Chadwick's Report — Lieut. -Commander Wainwright's Report — Lieut.- 
Commander Sharp's Report — Captain Cotton's Report — Lieut. Usher's Report 
— Admiral Cervera's Statement — Also Reports and Minutes of Conversations 
between the Commanding Officers of the Naval and Land Forces before 
Santiago 502 

Part II.— Continues the Official History of the War by Giving the Reports made to 
the War Department by various Military Commanders — ~.t Contains General 
Shafter's Report — General Wheeler's Report — General Kent's Report — In- 
spector-General Breckenridge's Report — It also Contains General Linaies' Re- 
port to the Spanish Minister of War — Various Statements and Documents Per- 
taining to the Santiago Campaign from General Miles, Secretary Alger, Gen- 
eral Shafter, and General Toral — Address of the Spaniards to the American 
Army — General Merritt's Report— General Anderson's Report 547 

Part III. — Supplements the Official Reports by Controversial Documents, such as 
a Letter from Secretary Long to Admiral Sicard — A General Officer's State- 
ment — Secretary Alger's Letter to Hon. Chauncey M. Depew — General 
Wheeler's Statement — General Sternberg's Statement 582 







List of Illustrations. 



PAGE. 

Aguinaldo, The Insurgent Leader 446 

Alger, Secretary, in his Office 38 

Almirante Oquendo, Bow of.. 64 

Almirante Oquendo, Wreck of 206 

American School, Flag-day at an 23 

Army Wagon— Tail-piece 46 

Atachio, General 445 

Augusti, Captain-General 419 

Aunon, Minister of Marine 435 

Bagley, Ensign Worth. I 69 

Baiquiri, The Landing at 259 

Barton, Miss Clara 364 

Bates, Major-General John C 236 

Battleship Oregon 162 

Blanco, Captain-General Ramon 388 

Blockading Fleet leaving Key We3t 68 

Blockading Fleet off Havana 77 

Blockhouse, Lime-kiln converted into.. 279 

Blue, Lieutenant Victor.. 169 

Blue Monday— Tail-piece 459 

Breokenridge, Major-General Joseph C. 381 
Bringing up Ammunition — Tail-piece- 581 

Brooke, Major-General John R 482 

Bugle Call— Tailpiece 12 

Butler, Major-General Matt. C 482 

Buttons will Come Off 501 

Cabinet, Sagasta announcing a new 49 

Cadiz, Coast Defense Gun at 59 

Cambon, M.Jules 484 

Camp Alger, Company Drill at 87 

Camp, A Convalescent 372 

Campos, General Martinez 400 

Castellar, Senor 145 

Cavite Arsenal, Capture of 1° 3 

Cavite, Spanish Earthworks at 426 

Cavite, A Street in 151 

Cervera, Admiral Pasoual y Topete 220 

Cervera's Fleet leaving Curaooa 160 



PAGE. 

Cervera's Fleet, Destruction of 195 

Chadwick, Captain F. E 229 

Chaffee, Major-General A. R 253 

Clark, Captain Charles E 214 

Color Guard, The 467 

Commissary Tent, Regimental 288 

Concas, Captain D. Victor M 218 

Cook, Captain F. A 229 

Corbin, Brig.-General Henry C 381 

Corduroy Road, Building a. 225 

Cristobal Colon, Wreck of. 197 

Cuba, Off for 16 

Cuban Patriot, A. 3 " 

Cutting Cables near Cienfuegos 491 

DeLome, Dupuy 31 

Dewey, Rear- Admiral George 410 

Don Carlos.. )1 

Duffield, Brig.-General H. M. 498 

Dynamite Gun, Inspecting a ■ ,( > 

El Caney, Bringing up Artillery at 298 

El Caney, The Capture of 300 

Embarking Troops at Tampa #4 

Eulate, Captain D. Antonio 217 

Evans, Captain Robley D 214 

Expedition, Loading Supplies for 273 

Field Gun Loaded on Mule 267 

Flag of Truce, The First from Santiago 346 

Flagler, Brig.-General Daniel W 381 

Garcia, General Calixto 40G 

Gomez, General Maximo 40 * 

Grant, Brig.-General F. D 4o8 

Greeley, Brig.-General A. V 4 

Greene, Major-General F. V 458 

Gridley, Captain Charles V 98 

Guantanamo, With the Marines at 217 

Gun on the Texas, Loading a 83 

Gun Squad at Practice 89 ' 2 

Guns, Working the Olympia'8 8-incn. . . 118 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PAGE. 

lawkins, Major-General H. S 253 

rligginson, Captain F. J 209 

rlobson and his Crew 174 

rlobson, Lieut. Richmond P 169 

ETobson's Reception after his Exchange 178 

hospital Ship, On a 378 

[nfantry, 25th U. S., Packing up 270 

Keifer, Major-General J. Warren 482 

Kent, Major-General H. T 498 

King, Brig. -General Charles 458 

King of Spain, The, and Queen Regent 48 

Ladrones, A Native of the 464 

Ladrones, Native Hut in the 466 

Lamberton, Commander B. F 422 

La Quasina, Rough Riders at the Bat- 
tle of 264 

Lawton, Major-General H. W 236 

Lazaga, Captain D. Juan B 217 

Lee, Major-General Fitzhugh 290 

Letter from Home, The 306 

Lieber, Brig. -General Guido N 415 

Linares, General — 291 

Long, Secretary, in his Office 38 

Ludlow, Maj. -General Wm 253 

Maceo, General Antonio 404 

Manila, Battle of— The American Fleet 129 
Manila, Battle of— The Spanish Fleet.. 128 

Manila Bay 420 

Manila, General View of 102 

Manila, Hermitage St. Nicholas 153 

Manila, Insurgents Decoying Spaniards 429 

Manila, Native Village near 149 

Manila, Port of 146 

Manila, Spanish Artillery Head- 
quarters 104 

Manila, Spauish Vessels Blockaded at 112 

Maine, Survivors of the 30 

Maria Teresa, Wreck of 198 

Matanzas, The Puritan at 86 

Matanzas, View of 80 

McCalla, Commander B. H 98 

McKinley, President, and Cabinet 27 

McKinley, William 21 

Merriam, Major-General H. C 482 

Merritt, Major-General Wesley 439 

Military Barracks, Annapolis 234 

Military Mast, In the Olympia's 132 

Miles, Major-General Nelson A 475 

Mining Village near Santiago 322 



PAGB. 

Monday Troubles — Tail-piece 15 

Mono Castle, Havana 383 

Montojo, Admiral Patricio y Parason. .. 110 
Montojo, Admiral, leaving his Flag- 
ship 119 

Moreu, Captain D. Emilio D 218 

New York, Volunteering in 85 

Off Duty 434 

Off for Manila— Tail-piece 158 

Packing Mules for the March 276 

Philip, Captain, Giving Thanks 233 

Philip, Commodore John W 214 

Pillsbury, Lieut. -Commander John E. 98 

Porto Rico, A Native of 477 

Powell, Ensign Joseph W 169 

Prizes, Spanish, in Key West Harbor.. 89 

Railroad Bridge at Aguadores 311 

Rapid-fire Gun on Shipboard 82 

Rapid-fire Gun, Working a Five-inch... 109 
Rapid-fire Gun, Working a Six-pounder 202 

Red Cross in the Field, The 366 

Regimental Post-Office— Tail-piece 546 

Roosevelt, Colonel Theodore 253 

San Juan Hill, Assault of Frontispiece 

San Juan, Charge of the Regulars 327 

San Juan, Porto Rico, View of 468 

Sampson, Rear-Admiral William T 188 

Santiago, Bombardment of 249 

Santiago, Boat Club House 322 

Santiago, A Corner in Morro Castle — 

Tail-piece 241 

Santiago, Fleet Positions at 204 

Santiago, Loading a Tiansport for '-'44 

Santiago, Lying in Wait before 166 

Santiago, Map of 307 

Santiago, Morro Castle 179 

Santiago, Officers Killed at 318 

Santiago, Palace of the Governor-Gen- 
eral 357 

Santiago, View of 242 

Santiago, Yellow Fever Hospital Near.. 311 

Schofield, Lieut.-General John M 397 

Schley, Rear-Admiral Winrield Scott... 188 

Sevilla, Block-house at 293 

Shatter, Major-General William R 271 

Shatter, Sampson and Garcia, Confer- 
ence between 277 

Shells used in the United States Navy 211 
Sicard, Rear- Admiral Montgomery 397 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PAGE. 

Signaling the Fleet ■ 216 

Sigsbee, Captain Charles D 397 

Spanish Officers, Captured, on the 

Nashville 9l 

Spanish Reserve Fleet, The 57 

Soldiers, Spanish, in Ambush 251 

Stanton, Brig. -General Thaddeus H.... 415 

Sternberg, Brig.-General George M 381 

Strategy Board, The 165 

Stuff our Navy is Made of, The 188 

Sunday in Camp— Tail-piece 6 

Tampa, Infantry Receiving Visitors at.. 263 

Tampa, Preparing to Leave 273 

Taylor, Captain Henry C HI 

Terror, St. Paul Disabling the 72 

Toral, GeneralJose y Velasquez 332 

Toral, General, Surrender of 353 

Torpedo Boat in a Gale 66 

Torpedo, Launching a 257 



PAOB. 

Torpedo, Loading a 256 

Uniforms, Light and Heavy 

Vesuvius, The, Throwing Project ilea... 208 

Vilnius, Execution of the Crew 396 

Vizcaya, Wreckof 205 

Wade, Major-General J. F 498 

Wainwright, Commander Richard 229 

Walker, Commander Asa 98 

Watson, Commodore John C 397 

Weyler, General Valeriano 403 

Wheeler, Major-General Joseph 290 

Whitney, Lieut. Henry W 172 

Wilson, Brig -General John M 415 

Wilson, Major-General James H 198 

Wood, Brig.-General Leonard 236 

Woodford, General Stewart L 24 

Working the Big Turret Guns 80 

Worth, Brig.-General W. S 458 

Young, Major-General S. B. M 236 




THE CONFLICT WITH SPAIN. 



BOOK ONE. 
I. 

IT is noted in the history of all peoples, that war serves as a flash light 
to reveal them to themselves and incidentally to their neighbors. 
Until the civil war, we were in the dark as to our capabilities for organ- 
izing armies, fleets, and the conduct of campaigns. Indeed our jocose 
habit of bragging, had long impressed the world with the conviction that 
we were an incurably ungovernable race, unamenable to the severe 
discipline rigorously essential in war. 

Our earlier conflicts had shown that we had constancy, endurance, 
and when adequately commanded, most of the qualities that go to make 
trustworthy soldiers. Even in our infancy we had routed the veterans 
of European fields ; had captured army corps under the most illustrious 
British captains, had, after years of cruel vicissitudes, finally worn out 
the British resources. But signal as our victory, in conquering inde- 
pendence, it was held alike by the worsted enemy and the European 
critics, that Britain's needs in Europe, more than the valor of the pa- 
triots, was accountable for the successful issue of the War of Inde- 
pendence. 

In the struggle of 1812, Britain was still further hampered by the 
prodigious efforts of Napoleon, who though rapidly sinking under coa- 
lized Europe, made it necessary for the British to keep fleets and armies 
in Europe, which, free to cross the water, would have made the war 
life or death to us. But wherever a Yankee fleet, or man-of-war, en- 
gaged an enemy, there remained no doubt of the status of our seaman. 
Under the southern cross, in the purple reaches of the Mediterranean, 
in the fogs of the German sea, or off the bleak coasts of New Eng- 
land, our mariners left a glowing track of victory, or of valor, that 
compelled the admiration of the world. Vessel for vessel, our fleets 
were never successfully resisted, with equal numbers, yard arm to yard 
arm, no enemy ever escaped capture or sinking. 

While Europe suffered the ignominious pillage of its merchant fleets 

cm 



18 TALES OF WAR. 

by the fierce buccaneers of the Barbary coasts, our sailors boldly en. 
tered the pirate harbors, burned the corsair treasure places, cut out 
vessels and extorted treaties of peace, on the decks of our victorious 
war craft. 

The civil war, however, proved that in action, the people of this re- 
public arose far above the energies, resources and audacities of Rome, 
when she made war a religion, or France, when her legislature decreed 
victories and won them. Since, as Gibbon acridly annotates, mankind 
gives more glory to its destroyers than to its benefactors, the tale of 
war is always the most absorbing, save possibly to the philosopher or 
the poet. The self revelation of war, is comparable, to that premoni- 
tory moment, in which it is said, that on the point of death, a man sees 
his whole career in an instantaneous glimpse. Until the civil war the 
lad at school or college, was taught eloquence in patriotism from the 
texts of foreign speakers ; all his ideas of valor were drawn from the 
spectacular glories of Napoleon, or the classics. The speeches of Burke, 
Mirabeau, O'Connell ; the polished and rythmic prose of Motley or Ban- 
croft, were the main resources for schools and academies. 

But the civil war gave a new cast to even collegiate thinking and 
admiration. The masterly simplicity of Lincoln, his addresses to all 
manner and conditions of men, became models for the young. The thrill- 
ing episodes of the armies that marched and fought from July, 1861, un- 
til April, 1865, replaced the conquests of Italy, Egypt — Europe. The 
boy began by learning that this republic had been born in war; had 
worsted its hereditary enemy, the British, twice ; had conquered Mex- 
ico; had fought from '61 to '65 a war, compared to which all other wars, 
up to that time were mere emutes ; had intimidated banded Europe, 
from the plot to divide us and forced the British to observe the word, if 
not the act of neutrality ; that we had curtly commanded the strongest 
military power of that day to withdraw from an usurped sovereignty in 
Mexico ; that in four years, an unmilitary, if not an unwarlike people, 
had perfected a warlike machine which could have resisted combined 
Europe. 

It was the inculcation of these things in the minds of the present 
generation that impelled Congress to disregard the prescribed course of 
negotiation and imperiously command war ! A complex and confusing 
vocabulary of new terms arose in the newspapers. The vain-glorious 
who spoke lightly of wars as the end and aim of national greatness, were 
spoken of as " types of Americanism." Careless and ignorant news- 
papers differentiated public men by this grotesque misnomer, but it be- 



A RACE NAME. 19 

came firmly established as a synonym for "citizen" of the republic, u 
fervent in his patriotism, than his neighbor ! 

To be stigmatized as " un-American " became the haunting terror oi 
public life; to be termed a "genuine American " was as mysteriously po- 
tent as the insignia of the cross in the age of the crusades. Yet the 
Canadian, the Mexican, the Brazilian, the Cuban, the Haytian, the Ar- 
gentines and Peruvians, are genuine Americans! Unlike the Dutch, 
when the United States of Holland played its great part in the world, 
we have no race name to designate our disparate social compact. " Van 
kee " is the nearest we have to a national designation covering all ; yet 
until the war of the rebellion, to call a southerner a Yankee, would 
have been as deep an offence, as to confuse a high caste Hindoo with a 
Pariah ! Now General Lee, kin of the greatest of the Confederate com- 
manders, glories in the name! Perhaps no secondary incident in the rec- 
onciliation of the North and South, is more significant of the effect of the 
war than the complacent acceptance of a term once used in reviling, as a 
glory and grace! Phenomena like these must be noted to enable us to 
comprehend the spirit in which our men took up the cross of war and 
won the crown of conquest. 

For it is a fact of curious import that no great war ever broke out 
from causes that involved the real interests of a people, in modern times 
at least, save our own struggle for independence and the French revolu 
tion. Even our own revolutionary war did not originate in what would 
be counted a great cause. The beginning was on a question of taxa- 
tion — it was only after the passions of the two peoples had become 
embittered that the struggle involved the vital issue of independence. 
But the reader will search history in vain for a war that was worth the 
fighting, all things considered ; that is a war deliberately declared and 
systematically prepared. Wars have been justly fought, when a people 
had been attacked wantonly, for revenge or conquest or dynastic ambi- 
tions. For nothing is ever permanently settled by war that could not 
have been secured by peaceful means ! 

By this is meant, aggressive war. When a nation is attacked, of course 
resistance is the first requisite of patriotism. But peoples like individuals, 
are rarely attacked, if they mind their own business, save when their 
territories excite the covetousness of neighbors, or prosperity stands in 
the way of the imperialistic tendencies of rivals. From 1789 until 1815, 
the conquering flight of France, indoctrinating the world with the gospel 
of democracy, was regarded as ample cause for the British to wage war. 
And until this day, so deceptive is the animus of history, the world accepts 



20 WAR A PASSION. 

the twenty years carnage, inspired by British greed, as a struggle between 
freedom and tyranny. It was a struggle between these conditions, but 
the tyranny was embodied, by the British and their allies, and freedom by 
the spirit of the French Revolution. 

War, however, is a passion like another. All our subsidiary activities, 
since the close of the rebellion, have tended to indoctrinate us insidiously 
with the passion for warlike things. During the term that has elapsed 
since Lee delivered his sword to Grant, the presidency has been occu- 
pied successively by men who achieved renown in the army ! There 
has been but one civilian chief magistrate of the republic since John- 
son. That is inaugurated — for no one now contests the validity of 
Tilden's election in 1876. In the Senate and House, the leaders of both 
armies have constantly held place. In the executive offices of the states 
and all places of high trust, the military have held the preference ! Even 
in the supreme court, men with military antecedents are conspicuous ! 

On the ceremonial days when the veterans of the civil war appear, 
they are acclaimed as impulsively as when in the days of their youth 
they marched to the field. " Flag Day " has long been a function in 
our public schools. Officers from our great military institute are de- 
tailed at youth's academies all over the union to teach the manual and 
the discipline of war! In every conceivable way, war is glorified, until a 
majority of the youth of the land, count all other uses for life tame and 
distasteful. 

The militia of the several states, are made up of the finest flower of 
the young manhood of the land. Co-existent with this imposing caval- 
cade, is the never-ceasing clamor of the military for increased battalions ; 
augmented armaments, a larger navy, fleets that shall equal those of na- 
tions, whose existence depends upon colossal armadas. 

Old as the world is, and many as the wars have been, there is no tale so 
captivating to a people as the story of war. If there ever were a people 
secure from the adventures of armies, we were until within the year, 
emphatically believed to be that people. Our enemies said we were too 
engrossed in the sordid to take time to prepare for strife, our admirers 
pointed us out as too happy, too well safeguarded from the snares and 
menaces of neighbors, too confirmed in the philosophic detestation of 
butchery to dream of war, save in defence of the national soil. Up, 
therefore till the very hour, that the amazed Spanish ministry rejected our 
imperious order to quit Cuba, within three days, war was as little foreseen 
by the vast majority of the people of the republic, as the blizzard that 
comes down in an instant upon the Western plains. 




William McKijstley. 

Commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy of the United States. 



DEMAND FOR WAR. 






There had been angry talk of war, with Britain, with Spain, with 

Chili, in fitful gusts, for years. But the impulse was only momentary. 
The country paused, berated the power or policy offending us, then 
plunged into the ways of peace. So recurrent had these almost humorous 
outbursts become, that our foreign critics cynically took up the tale to 
point the moral of a hopelessly practical people, so bent on money making 
that they couldn't carry a great impulse to its legitimate conclusion. 
Other nations, saying the same things in the press and parliament, about 
their neighbors, were ready for hostilities before uttering them. But the 




FLAG DAY AT AN AMERICAN SCHOOL. 

Yankee, it was agreed, whose immortal soul is immersed in "booms" 
and deals and trusts, pays no heed to his parliament, except when it is 
considering tariffs or the excise. 

From long habit in warlike speech, most of us, had, while not assenting 
to the acerbities of this criticism, come to regard Congress as a safety valve, 
rather than a deciding force in peace or war. Nine out of ten, if asked 
the question, any time before the 21st of April, would have declared that 
war could not be brought about, except by the will of the people, 



24 



THREE DAYS OF GRACE. 



vaguely supposing that in some occult way, a mandate could be obtained 
from the millions, who make Congress and executives. 

Hence when Congress gave Spain three days to withdraw from Cuba, 
there were very few of the citizens of this republic who realized that we 
had thrown down the gauntlet ; that war inevitably followed the deci- 
sive action of our lawmakers. The words were but too well understood 
in Spain. To escape the humiliation of the ultimatum from the despised 
nation of " merchants, " the Spanish cabinet resorted to a not unjusti- 
fiable subterfuge ; the despatch from our Secretary of State to Minister 
Woodford, informing him of the determination of Congress, was taken 




GENERAL STEWART L. WOODFORD. 



from the wire and conveyed to the Sagasta ministry before its deliv- 
ery to the Legation. In the precedents of international dealing, Spain 
had but one thing to do. Our minister was handed his passports. 
This was a virtual declaration of war, for when the tension between 
powers becomes so strained that a cabinet refuses to hold intercourse 
with an envoy, he is given his passports to leave the country. 

This was early on the morning of the 21st of April. Before night- 
fall Spain had cause to realize that war was begun. From the Carib- 
bean sea came reports <?f the enterprise of our cruisers. Swiftly, by 



ULTIMATUM TO SPAIN. 25 

©very despatch thereafter the tale of capture was retold. Then arose a 
furious outcry. It was charged in the Spanish press and reechoed in 
London, that with true Yankee greed, we had anticipated the pre- 
scribed forms of war and for the mere "money in it" had begun the 
spoliation of innocent merchant vessels, sailing the seas unconscious of 
the state of war. 

On the 25th of April, in order to formalize the situation, Congress 
put on record the declaration that the United States were at war with 
the monarchy of the Spains. But even then, when the daily despatches 
brought the country captivating narratives of the prowess of our auda- 
cious mariners, the people did not wholly realize that the long-drawn 
agony that had troubled the counsels of administrations for the last fifty 
years, was irrevocably submitted to the arbitrament that leaves no appeal. 

When the President called for 125,000 troops, a premonitory thrill 
of the spirit that moved the land in '61, for a moment broke the 
chill. Then began to be seen the results of multitudes of influences 
that had been almost imperceptibly at work during the last thirty 
years. Then the youth, who had been nourished on the deeds of their 
fathers in the war of the rebellion, uprose as their fathers rose in the 
memorable days of revolt. Then a condition was shown that never had 
a parallel in a civilized state. Had the President's call been for a mil- 
lion men, the number would have been enrolled before the machinery 
could be prepared. Though we are ranked among the cold-blooded 
and unimpassionate races, the imagination of the multitude, at once caught 
the import of the struggle. We were going to war for an idea ! The 
profligate despotism that had for a century stifled the energies of an 
earthly paradise, was to be brought to book for crimes against human 
freedom. 

War had been talked loosely in our semi-jocose way of treating 
grave subjects, any time during the last thirty years. So far indeed, as 
cautious observation connoted public sentiment, we were much nearer 
war with France in 1865, when the legions of the republic were freed 
from the conquests of the rebellion ; again when the British seemed to 
demur against paying the damages incurred by their aid and assistance 
to the southern insurgents. War for a moment seemed inevitable when 
Cleveland brought the British tergiversations to a pause in the Vene- 
zuelan scheme. 

In all the wars we have ever undertaken overt acts have preceded 
the formal declaration; that is, the people have taken the matter into 
their own hands. If the South Carolinians had not fired on Sumpter, 



26 CONDITIONS IN CUBA. 

there might have been years of controversy, ending in compromise, "but 
the tragedies of human passion cannot be resisted, when war is in the 
air. Therefore it may be said that war with Spain came as a grievous 
surprise to a vast majority of the people. 

It was in Congress and the public press, that the enormities of Span- 
ish despotism had been most passionately dwelt upon ; the vast majority 
of the people had but a vague notion of what was going on in Cuba, or 
what had been going on since we first cautiously intervened in the 
diplomatic way that nations observe in dealing with questions likely to 
bring on serious crises. The story of the misgovernment of the island, 
Spain's first conquest on this continent, had been told and retold so 
often, that only the political devotee, so to speak, kept track of the 
dolorous tragedy, as it was unrolled from day to day in the press, and 
from year to year in volumes of thrilling power. 

Rarely, since 1875 had there been a year when the cry of the Cuban 
" patriot " was not raised ; revolt, more or less serious had employed the 
resources of Spain. Time and again the assistance of sympathizers in the 
States seemed about to wrench the island from the domination of the 
parent power. Filibustering expeditions left our shores, and for a time 
gave the Spanish captains serious alarm. These incursions, sometimes 
rising to the gravity of international disputes, kept the two cabinets of 
Washington and Madrid incessantly active. 

Whenever this government made remonstrance with Spain at the in- 
tolerable condition of the Cuban people, Spain retorted that all the un- 
rest was the work of " Yankee adventurers." In 1875, we barely es- 
caped war over the capture and execution of a band of impulsive volun- 
teers, who set out to rescue the battling revolutionists. But by timely 
concessions to our demands, successive Spanish cabinets succeeded in 
staving off decisive measures. 

But, during the last ten years a group of daring men arose in the 
island, who, admonished by the failures of their predecessors, directed 
their efforts to a campaign of attrition. While depending almost exclu 
sively upon sympathizers in this republic for material, and even men, they 
maintained an incessant activity about the exposed legions of the Span- 
ish army, that in time wore out the courage of the soldiery and disheart- 
ened the efforts of the captains sent to put down the rebellion. But their 
greatest triumph was in forcing the accents of their wrongs and miseries 
upon the attention of the whole world, as they had never been heard be- 
fore. The journals of this country rang daily with protests and these 
were heard in the old world. Even the atrocities of the Turk, which 



OPPOSED TO THE IDEA OF WAR. 29 

moved the heart of Christendom, could not drown the cry of anguish 
that finally reached the ears of mankind. In Congress the leaders of the 
great parties took up the tale. The pulpits echoed it. A distinct senti- 
ment for the rescue of Cuba from intolerable oppression became irre- 
sistible. 

President Cleveland, in the last years of his administration warned 
the Spanish ministry that the patience of the people of the United States 
had been dangerously tried ; that it behooved wise men to make such a 
change in the conduct of affairs in the island, as would insure content- 
ment to the majority. 

When assassination had carried off the chief advocate of repression, 
Canovas del Castillo, the liberal ministry that succeeded, gave the Wash- 
ington cabinet assurances that the Cubans should have Home Rule, in 
the form Britain administers the Dominion of Canada. Then followed 
the Autonomist experiment, but it was too late. The battling minority 
were unconquerably averse to Spanish domination and the insurrection 
raged as fiercely as ever. 

President McKinley was from the first opposed to the idea of war. 
He selected a statesman of high character, a jurist of distinction., to go to 
Madrid as our minister and impressed upon him the necessity of enlight- 
ening Spanish statesmen of the dangers they were exposing the 
monarchy to, by keeping Cuba- a perpetual ulcer on the Spanish national 
body. But, though Minister Woodford extorted the admiration of even 
the Spaniards themselves, he was unable to make the ministry see that 
all that was left to the Metropolitan was to withdraw from the island and 
leave the inhabitants to their destiny. 

The heritage of woe left the islanders by Captain General Weyler, 
was too much for diplomacy to reconcile with the methods of a civilized 
state. The horrors of his system of crowding the rural population into 
masses under the range of the soldiers' guns, brought about a ferment of 
feeling that no influence in Congress, not even the executive, could re- 
sist. 

While the country was shuddering in horror over the atrocities of the 
k - reconcentrados," the nation was roused to anguish by the sinking ot 
one of our most powerful war vessels in the harbor of Havana, where she 
was anchored on a mission of peace. Slight events sometimes undo 
the strongest forces of human calculation. The destruction of the Maine 
made negotiation extremely difficult for the Washington cabinet. The 
country believed that the noble ship had been sunk by a Spanish hand ; 
it was never alleged that the hand had been inspired by anybody in 



30 



THE u MAINE" TRAGEDY. 



authority, but the atrocity came as a conclusive proof, of all the ma- 
lignant cruelties so long charged upon the Spanish administration. 

Though it did not fire the heart of the republic, as the attack upon 
the Massachusetts regiment marching at Lincoln's call, in 1861, it 
made anything like procrastination on the part of the negotiators im- 
possible. When the seeret is found out, it will probably be seen that 



ANDEOS0N 



CO TEY. 



WHITE . CAHILL HEFFROD 




SURVIVORS OF THE MAINE DISASTER. 
{Drawn from life, in the Brooklyn hospital.) 

the hand that struck down the great battle ship was dealing the 
hardest blow to Spain that had ever been struck, since the spirit of re- 
volt arose on the island. For had it not been for this, the president 
would have had a strong following in his purpose of extricating Cuba 
from her woes, without the direful expedient of war. 

Added to this was another incident, which though trivial enough in 
itself, swayed public sentiment far beyond its gravity. The Cuban 
Junta, tireless in its efforts to bring peaceful negotiations to a fruitless 
issue, managed to get hold of a letter from the Spanish Minister, Du- 
puy DeLome, in which the President was spoken of in a rather dis- 
paraging way and the project of autonomy, referred to skeptically. 



THE DE LOME INCIDENT. 



81 



The Spaniard wrote, as he supposed, in the inviolable confidence of in- 
timate personal friendship, and unburdened his mind of opinions and in- 
ferences that he was forced to keep to himself, in the hostile atmosphere 
of Washington. Letters of the same character are passing all the time 
from diplomats to their familiars, or even unofficially, to their hierarchical 
chiefs. Any volume of personal memoirs of statesmen will show correspond- 
ence of the same tenor. But of course the contents are not made known 
until the incidents, or persons criticized, have passed out of the sphere of 
actualities. Mischievous as the letter was, the President would have 
ignored it, had it not been published to the world, simultaneously with 




DUPUY DE LOME. 



its reception by the Secretary of State. It accomplished its purpose, to 
the extent its purveyors desired. It made the further presence of the 
luckless diplomat impossible, and to that extent, lessened the chances of 
a peaceful solution of the negotiations with Spain. De Lome's successor 
was at pathetic disadvantage in assuming the momentous mission from 
which so much was expected. 



32 THE CISNEROS INCIDENT. 

But perhaps the most conclusive indication of the wholly false attitude 
the country was made to seem to hold, was in an incident which sur- 
passed in insolent disregard of national comities anything ever done by 
one people to another since the Austro-British allies murdered the French 
envoys at Rastadt. A young woman named Cisneros, had been put in 
an Havana prison for undue activity in aiding and abetting the schemes 
of the Junta. Volumes of lachrymose twaddle were published in the 
sensational journals, recounting her heroism, her sufferings at the hands 
of the Spanish authorities. It was however, never intimated that she was 
conspiring against the lawful authorities of Cuba: that she was taken 
with every evidence of her handiwork in evidence. She was put in 
prison, and as Havana was virtually under military law, she fared as other 
culprits of the kind ever fare in war. One of the most adventurous of 
the yellow journals conceived that the invasion of the prison and the 
rescue of this person would make a sensation. The prisoner was spirited 
out of the lax keeping of her gaolers and carried to New York in triumph. 
There was no attempt made to conceal the operation — in fact the desperado 
who managed the law breaking, made a copious narrative of the exploit. 
The "rescued" young woman was petted and exhibited in New York ; she 
was paraded to Washington and made the protege' of eminent dames. The 
wife of the Vice President went so far as to give her a sort of adoption. 
High personages in the administration felicitated her and her rescuer. 

Now, had Spain been Great Britain, would anybody in this country 
have ventured to do this criminal act, or having done it, would the au- 
thorities of the United States admit even tacit sympathy? Suppose, 
during the Civil War, the British had countenanced the enterprise of a 
London journalist in entering the " Old Capitol " prison to rescue Belle 
Boyd, or Miss Surratt, or Miss Greenough? The demand of this govern- 
ment for the restoration of the prisoner and the punishment of the des- 
perado would have followed the first trace of the crime and the criminal. 
Yet, Spain never ventured to present a word of protest against this mon- 
strous invasion of her sovereignty. So far had we departed from the 
right view of proper conduct, that scarcely a word of protest was ever 
raised in press or public. It was plain that a nation compelled to endure 
such an affront as that, would suffer anything rather than go to war. 
Perhaps the jingoes and demagogues who continued provocation after 
this, did not apprehend war, certainly no legislative chambers ever heard 
such utterances about a neighboring state as were uttered in both 
branches of Congress, during the two months preceding the command to 
Spain to vacate her sovereignty in Cuba. 



NOT READY FOR WAR. 88 

Two distinct currents were marked in the discussion of the course to 
be pursued by the President. One was voiced by what was called the 
'•Jingoes," the other by moderate men who repelled the very suggestion 
of war as barbarous. But by far the most decisive factor in the denoue- 
ment, was a new school of newspapers called fantastically "Yellow 
Journalism." This extraordinary evolution of the press had arisen sud- 
denly; had dazzled the country by exploits that puzzled the grave and 
delighted the lax. By every conceivable art. they magnified the inci- 
dents attending the rebellion on the island of Cuba, and from the pettiest 
detail upreared a fabric of atrocity that threw certain elements of the 
people into a delirium of wrath. The excesses of the Spanish soldiery 
were exaggerated, the inhumanity of the chiefs surcharged with refine- 
ments of cruelty that convinced the reader of the incurable ferocity of 
the Spanish administration. The truth and the fact were lamentable 
enough, but these systematic inventions, reacted on the law-makers. It 
was impossible to deliberate with the dispassionate sincerity such an emer- 
gency called for. From all parts of the country, constituents made 
known to congressmen that war alone could avenge outraged humanity. 
For months both chambers of Congress echoed the indictments of the 
press. The foremost advocates in the House and Senate were men who 
had achieved distinction in the combats of the Civil War. 

Against such a torrent the President struggled resolutely. He knew 
that we were not ready for war. He knew that though Spain had been 
drained of her lifeblood by maladministration, and almost incessant war- 
fare at home and abroad, she was not an enemy to be attacked with 
levity. In this attitude the President was supported by the great major- 
ity of his countrymen. He was upheld by his Cabinet fervently. Indeed 
when Congress made further negotiation impossible, two of the members 
of this body resigned, feeling it to be impossible to give apparent assent 
to the new departure. John Sherman, the veteran of the Republican 
party, under plea of ill-health quit the great place of Secretary of State, 
and the Postmaster General, — Gary, retired to private life. Now every 
one who gave thought to the Cuban cause, sincerely desired the enfran- 
chisement of the island ; but not one in a thousand would have consented 
to the extreme step of war, if the end could be brought about in any 
other way. Nor were the men who advocated war in the House, or the 
Senate, the leaders that the people trusted implicitly in counsel. The 
veterans of our politics were almost unanimously opposed to war. In- 
deed the advocacy of a universal system of arbitration, to which all that 
is most sober in public life had given adhesion, made the very suggestion 



34 FIRING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 

of war seem an untimely derision. Nowhere from an authoritative 
source came a voice for war. On the other hand, the clamor swelled and 
was apparently unheard or misunderstood by the conservative. So in- 
credible did such an issue seem, that the oldest journal in the metropolis, 
stated gravely the very day before Congress acted, that such a thing as 
war was impossible, in this advanced stage of public morals. 

An unimpeachable witness — among others the editor and owner of 
;i powerful journal in Chicago, submitted proof that agents of the 
Cuban Junta had offered him 81,000,000 in bonds to "Fire the American 
people over Cuba's wrongs." Nor was there any doubt that the Cuban 
outcry was almost purely mercenary, where it was not a delusion. If the 
fomenters could but gain a five minutes' recognition of the so-called 
Cuban republic, these millions of bonds, distributed where they would do 
the most good, would be equal to so much money. That was the purpose 
of the propaganda. How many of the public men who took up the cry 
and carried on the crusade, were influenced by these bonds, will probably 
never be known. But of two conclusions the one must be adopted. 
Either the advocates of aggressive interference in Cuba were venal, and 
disseminating what they knew to be lies, or they were ignorant and there- 
fore had no authority to speak. The war had not gone on a month be- 
fore this was made clear. There was no Cuban republic ; there were no 
Cuban patriots ; there were no thousands on the island clamoring, suffer- 
ing, dying, for Free Cuba! There was no executive government ; there 
was no army. There was no considerable number of what would be 
regarded as reputable citizens desirous of a change. 

But the very agencies that should have safeguarded us against com- 
mitting the error of going to war, were most of them enlisted in forcing 
us into war. If a statesman in Congress undertook to demand proof of 
the matters alleged, or pointed out discrepancies, he was jeered in the 
jingo presses as ** The Senator from Spain ! " Only the most resolute public 
men ventured to hold out ; these, it is humiliating to say were few. Most 
of the public men, while privately confessing the action wrong, voted to 
force Spain to fight, when the time came. Unhappily for the republic, 
the administration was confronted, by no opposition worthy of even the 
semblance of tactical deference. In the House the party of Jefferson had 
relapsed into the keeping of immature nondescripts, who were too dull or 
too indifferent to look up the party traditions. The mere word war de- 
prived them of the semblance of rational speech. They clamored for 
war, yet denounced the majority for preparing for it. They professed 
undying sympathy for the "patriots" of Cuba, but took no action to 



BOOMING FREE CUBA. 35 

prove that there were patriots there. Rarely indeed has the popular 
system — the government of the people, by the people, made so igno- 
minious a failure, as the Congress of 1897-8. Neither group wanted war; 
the sane men in both knew that there was no occasion for war but the 
Democrats believed that they could gain a party advantage by daring the 
majority to go to war, and then deriding them on the hustings for not 
daring. It was this double duplicity that finally frustrated the wise 
measures of the executive and the men capable of thinking calmly. 

It is to be remembered too, that most of the party platforms made 
mention of Cuba in recent political contests. Both the great parties in 
the last presidential campaign demanded peace and liberty for Cuba, but 
none of them went so far as to declare for war. The people of this country 
have come to regard platforms with a good deal of indifference; for 
parties in power rarely find it expedient to carry out what seems desir- 
able when in opposition. It is too near the event perhaps, to trace mi- 
nutely the interpenetrating influences which so suddenly transferred the 
field of action from diplomacy to the field of war. 

While sympathy, based on every trait that adorns and ennobles human 
nature, was the basis of the sentiment the country felt toward the unfortu- 
nate Cubans, there were unquestionably other and ignoble motives at 
work to bring on a conflict. Vast commercial interests were involved in 
the expulsion of the Spanish and the substitution of "Free Cuba." 
Juntas for the "booming" of the cause of the " patriots," were main- 
tained in many of the great seaports. Bonds to an enormous amount 
were issued, and so placed as, to influence moulders of public opinion. An 
immense traffic in arms, stores and supplies, sprung up along our sea- 
coasts. Filibustering became almost as profitable to merchants in New 
York, Boston and the southern seaports, as blockade running to the mer- 
chants of London and Liverpool during our Civil War. Though the 
Spanish press, and even Spanish statesmen, made this traffic a constant 
subject of reproach to our administration, there is every evidence that 
our officials strove in good faith to suppress this evasion of the law of 
neutrality. This very necessity was among the causes that inflamed the 
advocates of war. The activity of the revenue cutters was denounced 
as a base partnership in the crimes Spain was committing daily on the 
Cubans. To every remonstrance of our diplomacy against the enormi- 
ties practiced by the Spanish soldiery, the Spanish diplomats made re- 
sponse that the war would not last a week if it were not supported by 
Yankee adventurers. 



PART II. 

BARELY had we embarked in war when its scope and potentialities 
began to expand. We set out by declaring our purpose to redress 
an intolerable grievance. To break the ghastly clutch of the dying hand of 
Spain from the corpse of Cuba. Before the war was ten days old, the same 
influences and agencies which precipitated the conflict, were engaged in a 
propaganda of conquest. The preconcert of the cry, the level uniformity 
of the argument, the shameless appeal to all that is sordid, thoughtless, 
unscrupulous in humanity, left no room to doubt that some ulterior 
agency was at work, educating the people of the republic in the way of 
danger — of dishonor. 

Coincident with this cry of conquest, an amazing phenomenon was wit- 
nessed in the British press. Where we had always been reviled and dis- 
paraged, we were now fulsomely plastered with praise. We were invited 
to share the grotesque designation of " Anglo-Saxon " — a term evolved 
from the empyrical formularies of British Chauvins, restive under the his- 
toric traditions of the Norman Conquest. We were asked to believe that 
our seventy millions were really of British fibre and brawn ; that British 
blood comes pure and undefiled from a handful of piratic nomads, who 
fled from the penury of the Baltic marches, to pillage themselves into 
prosperity on the island of the Angles. The clashing cymbals of triumph 
were sounded over a race alliance which should join our seventy millions 
with the " interests " of Britain ; fusion witli the Yankees was acclaimed 
in the Tory presses. A notorious politician identified with recreancy 
to liberalism, infidelity to his convictions, moral turpitude in the Trans- 
vaal outrage, denounced in Parliament as only second to Judas in recre- 
ancy, took the stump to convince the British people that all they had to 
do, was to dissemble their ingrained hate of us long enough, and British 
power, paralyzed by the union of France and Russia, would again cow 
the world. The argument was virtually this : 

The Yankees are of the same covetous, grasping breed Ave are ; all that 
is necessary to win them into aids and accomplices, is to flatter their love 
of glory, dazzle them from the heights of the mountain of predetermined 
victory, by plausible promises of booty in lands, the loot of all that Spain 
possesses — perhaps a share in the despoliation of the colonies France has 
gathered under her flag, during the last half century. Manila, it was 
artfully held out, would be a noble acquisition for the republic. The 

(36) 




Secretary of War, Russell A. Alger, in his Office. 




Secretary of the Navy, John D. Long, in his Office. 



BRITISH ALLIANCE OFFERED. 89 

teeming interests of the United States would find that realm of magnif- 
icent opportunities an ideal field for Yankee activities. Britain would 
look on with benevolent acquiescence while we declared the Monroe doc- 
trine a sham. Coincidently with this, the agents of the British govern- 
ment sedulously propagated the rumor as semi-official fact, that the great 
powers, the European concert, were conspiring to limit our operations 
beyond the waters of the Caribbean sea! Simultaneously with the ad- 
vance of our fleets, the cablegrams from London were daily filled with 
guarded disclosures of the heroic efforts of British diplomacy to check the 
union of the powers. Tales of the enmity of France, Germany, Austria, 
Italy — all the European powers in short, were poured into our news chan- 
nels with such assiduity, that for a term the horrified people expected 
that any hour might bring a declaration of European intervention: the 
appearance of an allied squadron in our waters, and the enforcement of a 
peace upon such terms as the European concert might see fit to dictate. 

Strangely enough, the jingo press — the very yellow journals, culpable 
in precipitating the war, were the noisiest in propagating this insensate 
intrigue. There was a moment when if put to a vote, the Cabinet would 
have been compelled to accept the joke of an alliance with the Briton. 
?n every city in the Union, the presses were ablaze with letters to the 
editor, glorifying the noble role Britain had played in the world. That 
segment of social activity, the clergy, were as history often shows, first to 
put the seal of approval upon this plausible campaign of hypocrisy and 
craft. They melted into rhapsodic eulogiums of the "Christian graces" 
of British civilization, of the endearing ties of kinship that linked the 
two peoples; of the lingering love in the heart of the people of this re- 
public for the "mother country." Meanwhile, the continental powers 
and social forces, ignorant of the astute campaign directed from and by 
British agencies, went on treating the war very much as we treat the 
conflicts that involve our friends and enemies abroad. 

Sentimentally, the aristocrats sympathized with a monarchy staggering 
under the crushing blows of the colossal democracy ; even those who ap- 
proved our intervention to rid Cuba of its curse, were by a readily com- 
prehensible tendency of human nature, moved to sympathize with the 
"under dog." But when the agencies of the continental powers in this 
country, made known to their home governments the malevolent craft, 
the systematic perfidy of the British propagandists in distorting the ut- 
terances and belying the attitude of the powers, it was too late. The 
belief had been infiltrated into the mind of the people of the republic 
that in our first venture in a war undertaken from high motives, the con 



40 THE SHAMELESS ARTIFICE. 

tinental nations distrusted our aims, and were only withheld from inter- 
ference by the sturdy veto of Britain. It was useless for the ministers of 
France, Russia and A ustria to show documents in proof of an inviolate 
neutrality ; of an attitude of absolute impartiality. The British cables 
were at hand daily to represent the heroic magnanimity of Albion— who 
stood guardian over the snarling powers. Had it not been for the chiv- 
alrous good sense of the British Liberals, within a month of the opening 
of the war, we should have found our future mortgaged by a bond as in- 
iquitous as it would be futile, with the nation that never kept a pledge, 
and never succored an ally, the moment her interests made treason prof- 
itable. 

The party of Gladstone denounced the shameless artifice ; they 
warned the republic that the Tory pleadings were simply to enable the 
discredited diplomacy of the Tory Cabinet, to take up the battle against 
a Europe coalized against Britain instead of, as heretofore, coalized with 
her. A long series of affronts were to be avenged : Russia had elimi- 
nated British influence in the East; Turkey had escaped the thraldom of 
the Crimean war ; France is in threatening propinquity in Africa, and 
resolute for enforcing the fulfilment of the compact for Egypt's libera- 
tion. With the forces of the republic to do the fighting, as the conti- 
nent did, in the campaigns against Napoleon ; as the French did in the 
Crimea, Britain might hope to withstand combined Europe with her 
fleets, and wear out the resources of the less affluent states. When the 
time for peace came, she would turn on her " kinsmen " as she has turned on 
every nation that ever entered into alliance with her, and despoil them of 
every acquisition held out as a bribe. It was not, however, the transpar- 
ency of the British machination that checked the impulse to become its 
victim. It was the extraordinary readiness of our press and public men 
to fall into the pitfall. With some there can be no manner of doubt the 
conversion was venal. We have become so habituated to the charge of 
" British gold," that the term is now derisive. But that British gold made 
the path easy, and the way shining for the monstrous proposal of union 
with our hereditary haters and contemners, no one acquainted with Brit- 
ish methods doubts. 

While a vigilant, satanic, unceasing corps was employed in watching 
the ill-natured utterances of the continental press, the gist of whatever 
was acrimonious was carefully collated and telegraphed to London, and 
there made into paragraphs of studious malignity for our home consump- 
tion ; the savage denunciation, the brutal innuendoes of the high caste 
British periodicals were rigorously ignored or explained away. 



THE SATURDAY REVIEW. 41 

If there is a journal in the British isles that faithfully voices the in- 
alienable rancor, the inborn hatefulness of the whole British race, it is 
the Saturday Review. A half century ago, Matthew Arnold took uj> 
arms to educate that journal in the graces of suavity, or sweetness and 
light : to turn its tone into the " sweet reasonableness " of the master, in 
order that mankind might be brought to think less harshly of the British. 
But he never succeeded. The Saturday Review has never treated the 
people of this republic other than as a vast congeries of ignorant, dis- 
honest, ungovernable and ungoverned social buccaneers. It was our in- 
veterate and calumniating enemy during the Civil War. It never admit- 
ted that we exhibited bravery, however constant, in the long war, or a 
single virtue of a great people during the five years of ordeal, when 
our institutions were tried as by fire. It vituperated Lincoln, from the 
day he assumed his burden, until the day he laid it down. It befouled 
our eminent men ; it pilloried our processes as venal, malodorous, anarchic. 
It lashed the Gladstone government to shreds for assenting to the Ala- 
bama award, and has never ceased to stigmatize the treaty as blackmail. 
In the scale of peoples, it has consistently treated us as a mingling of 
Mexican and Figiians. When the declaration of Congress, expelling 
Spain from Cuba reached London, this journal denounced us as thieves 
and bullies. The war was a speculation of the most abhorrent forces of 
the most abhorrent people in Christendom. Now this is the real senti- 
ment of seven in ten of the authoritative Britons. Any citizen of this 
republic who has sojourned in a British city, knows that a hate of hates, 
a scorn of scorns, animates the Briton in his estimate of the people of 
this republic. It was but a few years ago that the great shops in Lon- 
don made known that " American trade " was not desired in their estab- 
lishments—by " American," meaning the citizens of the United States of 
America. 

But a more eloquent testimony of the inexpugnable rancor borne for 
us, is shown by the methods adopted by the journals and journalists en- 
gaged in the plot to captivate our alliance. Such a compact would mean 
a new career of arrogant, unbridled British domination— for no sooner 
were we compromised by the bonds of British intrigue, than we should be 
compelled to transform our democratic civic system into an armed readi- 
ness to meet the enemies Britain would on the instant raise for us. We 
should be dragged into long and exhaustive wars in Britain's interest, in 
Asia, even in Africa where the British thirst to exterminate the only free 
people left — the Boers of the Transvaal. 

But more machiavelian than this, we should by joining in this nefari- 



42 AS THE BRITISH ARE. 

cms union with a nation whose diplomacy is a synonym for fraud and 
perfidy, give bonds against a future union with Canada. That immensf 
empire bounding us on the north, and to some extent shackling our es 
pansion, must in the very nature of things unite its fortunes with this re 
public. Indeed, the jingoes who exulted in the Venezuelan complication, 
demanded with a perfervid insistence, a campaign for the annexation of 
the Dominion. The press of the country, if polled a year ago, would 
have proclaimed by an almost unanimous voice, the vital need of absorb- 
ing the last relic of British dominion on the continent, if not in the 
waters of the continent. The leprous union proposed by the British 
would have ended that tendency. As yet, we have not been indoctri- 
nated in the practice of despoiling allies, as Britain did Holland, Denmark 
and Spain. Hence, Canada would be safe under the adage of honor 
amono- thieves. For once identified with the British, we should be as the 
British are, and there is not a literature in Christendom, or paganism 
either, where the British do not figure as thieves. If the republic could 
be lured into a treaty of " imperialism," seduced into seizing the Philip- 
pines and thus forced to seek British countenance, the future would be 
easy for the traditional British policy. We should be compelled to seek 
British counsel and British aid. We should be vulnerable to the attacks 
of coalized Europe. Above all, we should forever explode the logic of 
the Monroe doctrine. All of South America would be open to the enter- 
prise of the powers, surfeited but not slaked by the pillage of Africa. 

The aim was set forth with characteristic cynicism to Chauncey Depew. 
This effusive personage deprecated the war for the Cubans, holding it our 
duty to gain our ends by diplomacy. But in his annual tour to Europe 
he was taken in hand by the Tory propaganda and to the stupefaction of 
his admirers came back after a six-weeks' junket in British castles, a con- 
vert to war, to imperialism and to the British alliance. He explained 
without reserve the cajoleries employed. " You Yankees," said the 
tempters, "have grown too big for your slice of the continent. You 
must seize the Philippines; you can claim it as we always do when we 
want desirable territory, on the plea of civilization. That's what we pre- 
tend in Egypt, and the game always 'goes.'" It is easy to imagine the 
leer of the descendants and acolytes of the Pitts, the Walpoles, the Cas- 
tlereaghs and Palmerstons, as these phrases were sounded in the ear of 
the Yankee. Depew came home convinced, and set to work at once to 
propagate the thirst for dominion, the fever of grab, the religion of 
hypocrisy, that has carried the British on a tide of sordid glory and tar- 
nished grandeur, from the days of Elizabeth to the days of Victoria. 



CARLYLE'S ESTIMATE. 43 

Never did the fowler set the snare with such contemptuous disregard of 
the victim's common sense. The presses which had reeked with disdain- 
ful disparagement of everything we did or attempted to do ; the pre 
which hud glorified Jeff Davis and the slave holders, the presses which 
had rated the people of the union as a mingling of the ticket-of leave 
man and the Irish bogtrotters, in a day, as it were, found that we were 
bone of British bone, flesh of British flesh. That no wiser saying had 
ever been uttered than the machiavelian gibe of the time-serving dys- 
peptic Carlyle, that " King Shakspeare held the dwellers of the United 
States in as profound allegiance as the cult of royalty itself." The same 
Carlyle made his estimate of his countrymen as " Thirty millions, mostly 
fools." Hence, the populace of this country were accorded the privilege 
of being at one with the thirty millions, mostly fools. But the new 
ecstasy went farther. The chief of the Tartuffe organs of British guile, 
found that " Americans shared the hatred of the continent with the Brit- 
ish." Now for sixty years the Briton has been loathed in continental 
Europe. For almost the same length of time the British casuists, recog- 
nizing this, have expended volumes in wonder over the fact. Various 
reasons have been accepted or assigned — sometimes even the true cause? 
have been complacently admitted. 

Time and again, you might read in British monthlies that the Briton 
was, and is, hated because he is hateful. The various states of Europe 
hate the British because they have at various times made alliance with 
British cabinets, and in every instance they have been cheated. Den- 
mark hates the Briton, because in a time of peace a British navy entered 
the harbor of Copenhagen and destroyed half her fleet, and carried away 
the rest; Holland hates the British, because under the gi'ise of alliance, 
the British flag was flung out over Dutch colonies, and still remains 
there ; Portugal and Spain hate the British because as allies they robbed 
and pillaged them ; Germany and Austria hate the British, because in 
general wars, she made these states do the fighting, and when peace came, 
seized all the spoils. France loathes the British, because she subsidized 
the world to check her liberalizing march ; because she sent hordes of as- 
sassins to murder French patriots and French rulers; because she never 
kept faith. Because she has made history a lie and turpitude a religion. 
Because from 1789 to 1815 the flower and chivalry of France, that fell 
into British hands were subjected to the atrocities we mean when we 
speak of the prison ships in which our fathers rotted in our harbors; 
the massacres of Wyoming and a thousand other martyrdoms, put upon 
the patriots of the revolution; because during the sweat and agony of 
3 



44 WHY BRITAIN IS HATED. 

the Civil War, British ships, British guns, British aid were poured out 
like water to destroy the Union; that a rebel victory at Bull Run or 
Fredericksburg, was hailed by the presses that now degrade us by their 
sycophantic cajoleries, which were then most ebullient in pronouncing us 
corrupt and imbecile. 

One Briton, a public man, member of Parliament and editor of a widely 
read weekly journal — Henry Labouchere, has never minimized the crimes 
of his country. He had opposed the greed for territory and the oppres- 
sion of weaker powers, both in Parliament and in his journal. His speech 
is the delight of the British plain people, for he sets his face against the 
enormous expenditures the jingo policy costs the British tax payers. He 
saw the object of "British sympathy" for the United States, and taking 
the conversion of Depew as a text, he gave us warning. Depew went 
abroad deprecating any aim in the war, other than the end Congress de- 
clared. He returned converted to " imperial " jingoism. Labouchere gives 
a glimpse of the seduction. Depew was beset by aristocratic wheedlers, 
who know the weight of coronets and caste insignia, upon certain types 
of the Democracy. "Keep the Philippines," they implored, "and share 
China with us." They rallied him humorously on Yankee protestations 
of fine sentiment, confiding to him, the working of the British system. 
" That's the way we go about annexation, we protest Christian and civi- 
lizing motives and promise to leave as soon as these begin, and then we 
stay. Christianity and civilization demand it, you know, and we give 
the beggars liberty, law, justice, and order, which they never had before. 
It is in your blood, you have come to it honestly, you have aroused this 
appetite of earth hunger, and you cannot stop." 

Labouchere, who has been in public life longer than most of his con- 
temporaries, adds some reflections that touch the British and their 
methods, with a firm sure stroke : " I do not know who the statesmen 
were that thus confided in Mr. Depew. Over the dinner table, with the 
genial American, they laughed at the pleas for grab which they profess in 
public to their countrymen. They glory in their predatory instincts. 
They come honestly by these instincts, they boast because it is in their 
blood, and they advise Americans to show their kinship to us by follow- 
ing our example. There is, however, a fact which both they and Mr. 
Depew would do well to remember: 'thieves fall out.' 'Share with us 
China ' sounds well, but if the booty were jointly secured, it is probable 
that the confederates would proceed to fight for the lion's share of it. If 
the Americans are wise, they will maintain the policy in regard to their 
relations with foreign nations that has made them the most prosperous 



THIEVES FALL OUT. 45 

nation on the globe. They would not annex any country, where the) 
would have to rule over subject races. They will claim a voice in any 
alterations in the tenure of territory on the continent on which their lot 
is placed, but they will steadily act elsewhere on those sound principles 
of non-intervention that they have already so conclusively proved are the 
road to fortune. They are entirely mistaken in supposing that the mass 
of Englishmen are the cynical robbers that their statesmen have repre- 
sented them to be to Mr. Depew. They have been temporarily led astray. 
But there are already signs that they will soon return to the path of hon- 
esty and of common sense." 

Arguments so crudely base, so cynically rascally were addressed to the 
groveling and sordid in us that it is clear we are rated of the intelligence of 
the Pacific islanders, who exchange the sovereignty of the coral strands and 
palm groves for casks of rum, glass beads, or opium. By some inexplicable 
process, the correspondents of our chief journals stationed in Britain, be- 
came ardent propagandists of the " deal." For it was frankly put upon 
this basis. You need the markets of China, the Briton urged. If you 
don't join hands with us, Russia, Germany and France will dismember 
the ancient empire, and then where will your trade be? Nor in the vol- 
umes on volumes of confraternal seduction poured out, was there any 
argument more valid than this. Nor did the sense of the country seem 
to detect the shallowness of this prattle. For why should China be any 
less open to our markets with Russia and France, Germany and Austria 
ruling the celestial territories, than when ruled by the Chinese them- 
selves? 

If we have wares that the millions of the Chinese empire need, they 
will buy them from us, no matter what power or council of European 
powers dominate Pekin. We sell our wares in Russia, in Germany, in 
France— why should we find it any more difficult to sell in markets 
under the domination of these powers? Or, why should we need the 
Philippines to insure the peaceful entry into Oriental ports? Our inter- 
ests in Asia remain precisely where they always have been ; we have 
reached a vast trade there, because the people must have what we pro- 
duce. Could any power or combination of powers impede us — even were 
they disposed to? But that the British should venture to insult our in- 
telligence by this species of argument, discloses the ineradicable misun- 
derstanding the Briton has always manifested in judging us. He be- 
lieves that the majority of the people of this republic are knaves, in- 
fluenced by the temptation that arms the cracksman and the freebooter, 
and he addresses us arguments, that in old times would be resented as 



46 



OUR FOREIGN MARKETS. 



a cause for war. With honest wares to offer the world, it is a matter of 
indifference to this republic what powers seize and hold other people's 
territories. But the Briton urges : " We have discovered the immense 
potentialities of the United States for reshaping international destinies 
and with the discovery has come the realization of the fact that only by 
the aid of American influence can grave disasters to the prestige and 
prosperity of the British empire be averted. Moreover, England is will- 
ing to pay what she considers to be a fair price for the necessary coopera- 
tion. That is the basis of the whole matter. Sentiment has nothing to 
do with it, and the quicker it is dismissed from consideration in connec- 
tion with the question of an Anglo-American understanding, the better 
it will be — for America." In other words, Britain will accord us what she 
cannot possibly keep from us, if we will aid her to brow-beat the rest of 
Europe : maintain her supremacy as arbiter of international destinies. 
If we are the hard-headed, far sighted race, we get credit for being, the 
impudent baseness of the proposition ought to be enough to forever end 
anything but the most formal relations with a power cynical enough to 
make the proffer, and insulting enough to believe us capable of consider- 
ing it. 










The King of Spain and Queen Regent. 



ft 

UNTIL the moment the action of Congress reached the Spanish people, 
no one in the peninsula dreamed of the possibility of war with this 




SAGASTA ANNOUNCING A NEW CABINET. 

republic. The last to apprehend it, was the Queen Regent and the Cab- 
inet. Sagasta, a venerable statesman who had served all parties and was 

(49j 



50 SPAIN'S DECADENCE. 

known to deprecate extremes, had counselled concessions to the utter- 
most demands of the Cubans as voiced by our minister. Day by day all 
that had been denounced in Spanish administration on the isle, was 
changing. Home rule, as applied to Canada by the British, had been 
formulated — above all, the odious Weyler had been promptly recalled on 
the urgent suggestion of the Washington Cabinet. Our proffers to care 
for and feed the wretched country people, crowded into the Spanish lines 
called " reconcentrados " had been accepted. So far as the Spanish Cab- 
inet knew, there were no further serious demands to be made. When 
therefore the command of Congress reached Madrid, giving Spain three 
days to quit the island of Cuba — there was from one end of the peninsula 
to the other but one cry, one resolution — to die first. Nor was this con- 
sidered a figure of speech, by the most patriotic of the people. Spain, 
as all her children knew, was far from a condition to wage war, even with 
a less formidable power than the republic. For years her treasury had 
been drained by colonial wars, by the creation of a navy adequate to her 
colonial needs, altogether out of proportion with her revenues : by revo- 
lution at home, and insurrection abroad; by the maladministration of the 
finances, by political jobbery, by the dynastic necessities of a semi-alien 
sovereign to secure by bribery, what other rulers hold by loyalty and 
patriotism. 

Carlism — the century curse of this kingdom, kept the Court and Cabi- 
net in apprehension. At best the Spanish race have mistaken their tra- 
dition for actualities, since the reign of Philip II. Under his hide -bound 
bigotry, the Spain of Charles V., the Spain of heroic achievements came 
to an end. She had eminent men in her service for many a day after, 
but the morale of the nation suffered an eclipse, as visible as it has here- 
tofore been incomprehensible. Strangely enough the decadence began 
from above ; a long series of semi-imbecile and wholly profligate kings 
germinated the seeds of decadence, which spreading from court to camp, 
from camp to cloister, gradually impregnated the race. Neither art nor 
science in any of the varied fields that began to thrive exotically else- 
where, remained in Spain. Decay was as manifest in the humbler arts of 
industry as in the sublimer reaches of the plastic arts. Since the six- 
teenth century, Spain has produced no great pictures, no statuary, no 
eminent embodiment of any of the masterpieces that multiply among 
perennially thriving peoples. In war, the Spanish armies sank to derision, 
her fleets, never victorious save under exceptional circumstances, became 
a nullity with the opening of the eighteenth century. 

Yet, curiously enough this people mistaking its past achievements for 



SPAIN'S EARLY CONQUESTS. 



51 



present actualities, brought the career of the world master -Napoleon to 
an end. It was the stupefying surrender of a French corps d elite, 
at Baylen, that aroused Europe to the fact that the master of victories 




DON CARLOS. 



was vulnerable, that he could be beaten in arms, if a whole people re- 
solved it. It was the Spanish people who wore the French out, by the 
endurance of four years of disaster on every field they fought. Three 



5 2 THE CONQUISTADORES. 

hundred thousand of the soldiers who had conquered every army in 
Europe, were decimated. The Spaniards won what is called in sublime 
irony, "the war of independence," by very much the same tactics in 
which the Cubans wasted the armies of Spain's greatest warriors during 
the last ten years. Wherever they stood up in battle before the veterans 
of Napoleon, they were routed like herded cattle, but in the deeps of the 
forest, from the secret paths of mountain and defile, in the narrow 
streets of the tortuous mountain towns, the deadly stroke of the guerilla 
picked off the unconscious soldiery. Though nominally master of every 
city and strong place in the peninsula, or the strategic points, the invad- 
ing army was never secure, except in its camps. 

Nor was the war of independence the only memory that stood as an 
actuality in the mind of the Spaniard. Cortez, Pizarro, Alva, Ganzaga — 
the great captains, were in the minds of the million, living personages to- 
day. Though he may be unable to read or write, the meanest peasant 
from Andalusia to the Basques, knows the story of the great conquista- 
dor Cortez, the ungovernable boy, who, fleeing from the trammels of the 
law sought glory and gold in the Eldorado Columbus had just given to 
Spain. How he had impressed his courage and ability on the viceroy of 
Cuba, who was in need of a submissive lieutenant to blaze the way for 
a secure conquest of the fabled Mexico. How with 500 men, Cortez 
landed on the Mexican shores, astutely availed himself of the supersti- 
tious awe of the people, who believed the strange white beings gods, 
pushed on throught he swarming millions to the capital of the Montezu- 
mas ; dominated these wild and credulous children of the sun. How 
when the truth dawned upon them that the whites were mere mortals, 
and they arose in vengeance, Cortez with his 500 held them at bay and 
though half his force was slaughtered in the "sad night" of destruction, 
snatched victory and conquest from the very jaws of ruin. 

Nor was this prodigious story the only one that the Spaniards counted 
among the evidence of Spain's superiority. The annals of no people 
ceem with more audacious enterprises, more constancy in every conceiv- 
able danger and hardship. Scores of historical masterpieces in every 
tongue are devoted to the stirring tale. The humblest Spaniard in com- 
mon with the proudest, could not conceive the inheritors of such ances- 
tors, such traditions, vulnerable to a race of yesterday, as it were. What 
though there were seventy millions of people in the arrogant, parvenu 
republic; could such a race pretend to give law to the inheritors of the 
men who had conquered the masters of the old world and made the new? 
Add to this, that reading as we know it, does not exist in the peninsula. 



BRITISH INTRIGUES. 53 

That learning, education are prerogatives of the rich, the well born. 
That newspapers are rare and costly. That the mind of the Spain of to- 
day, is the mind of the Spain three centuries ago. 

When a people are dependent for arms, for every article of commerce, 
when their ships are built in foreign dock yards, their railways con- 
structed, operated by foreign artisans and foreign capital, their mechanic 
arts carried on by strangers, even their hostleries and pleasure houses 
managed by foreign syndicates, their mineral wealth exploited by outside 
companies, even their vineyards in the hands of aliens ; it is not hard to 
prophesy the helplessness of such a people in the operations of war, now 
reduced to an exact science. 

Since the day Spain accepted the alliance of the Briton, her decadence 
has been steady, insidious, decisive. For the "war of independence" 
carried on by British treasure and manipulated in British interests, was 
but the transfer of the destinies of Spain from the constitutional liberal- 
ism of Napoleon's well-meant usurpation, to the maleficient despotism of 
Bourbonism, under the tutelage of British greed and duplicity. The 
British alliance in Spain, as everywhere else that this unholy bond has 
been formed, has brought rot, decay and extinction to all nationality. It 
was a British alliance that wrought the destruction of Holland ; it was 
British alliance that dragged France to the abysm of anarchy from 1815 
to 1852. It was British alliance that blotted Prussia from the map of 
Europe in 1805 and Austria from 1797 to 1815. It was by alliances with 
her destined victims that the British succeeded in seizing a third of the 
colonies of the globe. But of all the victims of British alliance, Spain is 
the most warning example, for every step in the decadence of the people 
is clearly traceable to British instrumentalities in specious forms. 

To the student, there was the pathos of the inscrutable in the causes 
and passion that thrust this republic to the front as the instrument of 
Spain's last devastation. For even the most ardent friends of Spain felt 
from the first, that the perishing people of the peninsula — sixteen or 
seventeen millions — were no match for the seventy million robust antag- 
onists, the war made us. There were exhaustive arguments and studies 
in foreign periodicals demonstrating the inevitable outcome of the im- 
pending conflict. The republic of course, must carry her point in the 
end. But the earlier stages of the war would witness destructive over- 
throws of the republic's fleets ; of her armies by disease in the swamps of 
Cuba. For a year at least, it was circumstantially prefigured, the repub- 
lic would have to learn war at the hands of her weaker foe ; on sea and 
land she would be overwhelmed by the superior fleets and the better dis- 



64 SPAIN'S FLEETS ON PAPER. 

ciplined soldiery of the Castilian elite. The array of the Spanish fleets 
on paper, overtopped all the republic could muster in majesty and 
science. The trained ranks of a regular army, that had lived on war, 
would rout the raw levies— howsoever brave — hastily called from the 
pursuits of peace. Our great seaboard cities, it was mathematically 
demonstrated, would be either leveled or ransomed within ten days of 
the opening of hostilities! The points of vantage on our coast were 
pointed out, where the invincible fleets of Spain, in the early days of the 
conflict, would entrench bases for supply and even recruiting stations for 
the army and navy. 

For among the extraordinary delusions holding the fixity of an axiom 
in the foreign mind, was the conviction that the population of this repub- 
lic was not of the homogeneous texture that makes the multitude patriots, 
that inspires men to quit home, wealtk-getting — all the ease and ends of 
life, in short, to defend the flag, to illustrate it, if need be. The ablest 
polemists, the most admired philosophers, made this mixture of races, this 
disparity of citizenship, one of the fatal drawbacks to vigorous and sus- 
tained effort on the part of this country. Indeed the universality of this 
belief — that the peoples of this republic — who have not even a generic 
name; who have no country in the sense that, the Frenchman, Italian 
and Spaniard have their "patrie," the Germans, their " fatherland," could 
not be brought to face the self-sacrifices of war, the immolation of soldier- 
ing or sailoring, colored the judgments of our critics. The generality 
of this belief and its serious utterance, are another testimony to the 
superficiality of general knowledge. 

The most cursory glance at the history of the republic, from the infant 
efforts of the colonists, to the prodigious enterprises of the Civil War, 
would have admonished theorists of this text, that no struggles in the 
evolution of peoples, demonstrated more devotion to all the symbols of 
citizenship, country, than the unanimity shown by the men who make up 
this nation ; whether the volunteer be native born, alien, or the descend- 
ant of an alien — no state — since the foundation of Rome, has ever evoked 
the devotion of its citizens so impulsively as this. 

Nor once since the formation of the republic, have we a record of a 
treason among the trusted men of the republic. What race, nation, or 
cause, since recorded events have been trustworthily reported, can show 
a similar testimony? No one ever heard of state, military or adminis- 
trative secrets, sold to foreign powers, from any official source in this 
country. History could have refuted this argument of Europe, that we 
were bound to pass through defeat to ultimate triumph, but our history 



YANKEE COUSINS. 

does not seem to have interested the foreigner. 55 or Ss this surprising, for 
we are separated from the continental peoples by the barrier of language 
— all that is known of us on the continent, is caught up from British 
renderings. Now, though we use the same tongue as the British, we are 
as little known to the majority of the islanders, as we are to the Germans, 
the French or the Russians. Such history as the continent reads con- 
cerning the United States, is translated from British texts. Any one 
familiar with the appreciations of this republic, and its manners, insti- 
tutes, habits, tendencies, government and administration, as set forth 
in British works, is not surprised at the grotesque misjudgments passed 
upon us by continental critics. Until within a few years — coincident in 
fact with the President's message on British rapacity in Venezuela, Brit- 
ish discourse on the republic and its people, was a mingling of derisive 
misinformation, ironic tolerance or insufferable condescension. It is no 
crime in the Briton to know little or nothing of the republic or its peo- 
ple, but it is in keeping with his world-wide status in perfidy, that he re- 
produces us to the rest of the world, without warning the reader that 
his assertions are conjectures, his deductions half truths, his estimates 
partial. 

It is easy to comprehend why the British should estimate us in fantas- 
tic disproportion. We are a new people ; our history is humdrum ; there 
are none of the scenic situations in our development that a European 
people presents. Our political intrigues involve no possibility of war. 
What is, or is not done, in our Congress is a matter of indifference to 
statesmen, guiding other peoples. The success or defeat of one or the 
other party in our elections, bears no ulterior relation to other powers. 
For an instant, our assertion of the Monroe doctrine aroused the super- 
cilious interest of Europe. Journalists were despatched from over the 
water to report just the sort of folk we seemed to be. Gushing evangels 
of "kinship" were delegated from London to melt the sensibilities of 
" the better classes " of the States, by the proclamation of the love the 
British people felt for their "Yankee cousins." But, as the yellow 
journals of " the mother country ", as the Anglophiles are fond of styling 
Britain, protested British love, the "nobility and gentry" made manifest 
the contemptuous scorn in which we are now and always have been held 
by the ruling caste. 

It was largely by depending on British estimates of the people of the 
United States, that the Spanish people and Spanish ministers played the 



56 SPAIN TEMPORIZES. 

fatal game of temporization. They had learned from British diplomats 
and British presses that we were ineradicably corrupt; that our politicians 
were braggart irresponsibles ; that the multitude were so intent on heap- 
ing up millions, they would not stop for war, even if the Congress and 
the President should have the courage to declare it. Down to the last 
penny in our treasury, the last bolt in our war ships, the Spaniard got 
his information from British presses, British publicists, and British 
agents. It was an unquestioned acceptance of this voice, that . led 
them into the fools' paradise of confidence, which made the Spanish 
masses turn in execration upon the British, so soon as the war was de- 
clared. Then the Briton revealed himself; the presses scolded the Span- 
iard for dreaming of war with such a treasury as the republic had at its 
disposal. They pointed out the impossibility of meeting such an adver- 
sary on equal terms. They reminded Spain that the Yankees were of 
British kin, and that the race was always victorious at sea. The wretched 
Spaniards began to catch a glimpse of the abyss they had dug for them 
selves. 

But there were other powers that had sometimes shown generosity. 
France had gone to war for ideas ; had fought to give Italy unity and 
freedom ; had shed blood in rivers to free Poland, had never, in fact, re- 
fused to aid the overmatched. Then too, the French were kin ; they were 
of the same ancient stock — that is to say, the two peoples could be traced 
to a single source, called in the confusing jargon of the learned, — 
" Latins." France too, or her financiers, held millions on millions of 
Spanish bonds ; French skill, taste and enterprise were in exploitation of 
nearly every branch of domestic handicraft in the peninsula. France 
surely would — the Spaniard believed — fling the tri-color out beside the 
livid oriflamme of Castile. But, while the ranks of pleasure, the bankers 
and journalists, fell into fervid exclamations of sympathetic admiration for 
the harassed cousins across the Pyrenees, the sober peasantry, the hard- 
headed bourgeoise, the rank and file of the Democracy, turned away in 
silence. It was hard to be unneighborly they said in dumb show — but 
France as a republic could not give more than platonic sympathy — even 
to a cousin. Then a Minister of the Queen arose in the Cortes — with a 
Jeremiah lament, that impressed the nations. Europe, he declared, had 
lost its soul. There is no longer a sentiment of chivalry ; the adoration 
of might has obliterated the very idea of the profit of right. Europe 
wants cent per cent., for whatever she does. We must go with our 
hands full and pay a big price if we expect help. 

Just what Spain took in her hands when she appeared in Berlin — this 
generation will probably not know — but Berlin seems to have found the 
handful nearly enough — for thereafter the master of Germany did every- 




t 



is, 



isJ 



•fe. 



I 





v f V^ff 



!,4 



\.'- 



SYMPATHY FOR SPAIN. 



69 



thing but send men and fleets to support the lavish hand. Not that the 
Powers were not in sympathy with Spain ; when the time comes to disclose 
the official documents — it will be seen that every Cabinet in Europe, from 
the Thames to the Neva, was of one mind, so far as partiality for Spain 
went. But — the spoil to be gathered afterward — divided the harmonious 
concert. By concessions in China — the Russian bear and British lion 
would have roared together behind the Spanish plume. By breaking' the 
compact with Russia and joining hands with Britain, France might have 
shared the Philippine conquest with the preacher of "Anglo-Saxon'' 
solidarity. But Spain could not prevail on France to break with Russia 
for the doubtful boon of sharing British gains. France had experienced 
the lack of equity in British alliances, and refused to join the plot. But 
from the very blackness and deeps of defeat and affront, — British diplo- 
macy plucked the imposing semblance of a masterstroke. As if by magic, 
the whole world awoke one morning and found this Republic enamored 
of Great Britian. The tale is as humorous as Shakespeare's analogous 
miracle — Titania's infatuation for the ass ! 




COAST DEFENCE GUN AT CAPIZ. 



PART II. 

IN the grandiose pageantry of history, there is no host legendary or ideal 
that stands out more impressively than the groups who wrought 
Spain's earlier destinies, and impressed her supremacy on two worlds. 
From the almost fabulous conquests of Ferdinand and Isabella,— to the 
subjugation of the two Americas, the Spaniard illustrated every trait as- 
sociated with heroism. Under the sceptre of Charles V., more than half 
of Europe paid tribute to the genius of Spain. Like Rome she estab- 
lished her religion, her language, her laws, over unknown lands and peo- 
ples — a million fold more numerous than her own children. From his 
sombre cell in the Escurial, Philip II. sent mandates to his lieutenants — 
who ruled the then unknown continents of North and South America- 
even the Philippines now at the disposal of this republic. 

The dynastic wars of the eighteenth century began the demolition 
of this colonial world empire. The seating of a French Prince, the 
grandson of the Bourbon King Louis the XIV., stimulated the jealous 
rage of Britain, Austria and the Stadt-Halter of Holland, the crafty Prince 
of Orange— who by arts and conduct little in keeping with his professions, 
gained possession of the British throne. The Continental Powers were 
intent on crippling the European extension of French domination, while 
the British were bent on appropriating the American possessions of the 
decaying Spain. When the war ended, the French Prince was left undis- 
turbed on the throne of the great Emperador Charles — but all coveted 
parts of the vast possessions of the crown had fallen into British hands. 

When the Napoleonic wars began, Spanish power and Spanish admin- 
istration were the scorn of Europe. The Bourbon monarchy, pendulating 
between the caprice of women and the ineptitude of monks, ennobled the 
worst Moslem regime by contrast. A Bourbon King invoked the army of 
Napoleon to curb the plotting of the heir to the throne. In contempt of 
law, policy, and even personal honor, Napoleon set the dynasty aside and 
installed his brother in the palace of the Hapsburg Csesars. His methods 
of doing this were of a piece with the substitution of the Houses of 
Orange and Hanover, for the Stuarts in Britain — but he neglected to 
cover his designs with the panoply of religion and liberty, which the 
Britain flings over similar predations. The Spanish, who loathed their 
imbecile kings, were inflamed to expel the invader — even though that in- 

(60) 



SPAIN IN BONDAGE. ft 

vader had begun the work of political, social and religious reconstrhction 
that would have made Spain a well-governed, enlightened and liberal 
regime. But it was to the vital "interests" of Britain— her oligarchy 
and her traffic, that Spain should be kept in political and social bondage. 
British subsidies were poured in Klondike streams into the treasuries of 
the provincial juntas, which claimed to embody the patriotism of the 
Spanish people. To the subsidies were added armies — such as Britain 
had never before organized, even for the crushing of our forefathers. By 
attrition, by fomenting the passions of the people, by coalizing Europe, 
Napoleon was diverted from completing the military conquest of the 
peninsula, and finally when swirled into the campaign in Russia, the 
British, with all Spain swarming in arms about Wellington's army, were 
emboldened to face the depleted ranks of France, and drove them over the 
border. 

From that day to this, British intrigue has held Spain as firmly in the 
grasp of British interest as Australia or Canada. During the campaign 
from 1808 until 1813, the British laid claim to supporting and upholding 
the Spanish people in their efforts for independence ; they formed the 
wild enthusiasts that flocked to the Spanish standard in their own simil- 
itude. They breathed the breath of national life into them. They denied 
the armies, they organized every able-bodied man on the peninsula — in- 
cluding Portugal — the first attribute of soldiery ; they protested that no 
Spanish army, whatever its number or howsoever well equipped, could be 
brought to stand a volley from the French, no matter how inferior in 
numbers or lacking in supplies. British reports were laden with the 
fanatic savagery of the Spaniards, gentle and simple. Yet Napier, the 
standard historian of the Wellington campaign, puts on record that the 
British soldiery — whenever it was victorious in town or camp, outvied 
savages in the excesses committed on women and property. 

Every great power in Christendom maintains officers at the capitals of 
other states, to keep track of the status of military and naval invention, 
increase in fleets, armaments, and the whole field covering efficiency in 
war. Now — when war was declared, our administrative bodies were not 
certain of the proportion of the fleets, nor the effectiveness of the arma- 
ments that could be put to immediate use by Spain. 

It was after 1868, when the Spanish naval system went to pieces from 
the dry rot of maladministration, that the government took in hand the 
re-creation of a navy capable of safeguarding the monarchy both at home 
and abroad. The dockyards of Spain and the mechanical ingenuity of 
the i>eople were unequal to carrying out the decrees of the Cortes. The 



62 TORPEDO VESSELS. 

building of the vessels was therefore turned over to the dockyards of 
Britian, Italy and Germany. In the course of ten years, more than a 
hundred fighting craft — from armored cruisers and battle ships to tor- 
pedo-boats, were turned over to the Spanish marine. They represented 
at the epochs when completed, the very farthest advance in the perfection 
of fighting machines. In the rating of navies, the maritime forces of 
Spain have been given rank after Germany and Italy. The battle ships 
and cruisers were accounted as effective as any similar vessels in the 
British fleets, which are conceded precedence above all the powers both in 
number and destructiveness. While the perfection of the Spanish ships 
was universally admitted, there was, even before Dewey's and Schley's 
demonstration, some doubt as to the efficiency of the officers and crews 
to handle mechanism requiring qualities and aptitudes so unlike the pro- 
verbial gifts of the Spaniard. 

But while this was admitted, it was universally held that the possession 
of a crushing preponderance of torpedo vessels would make it perilous 
for the fleets of the republic to stand up before the enemy's war ships — 
even in equal numbers. It was pointed out by military writers, that the 
efficiency of the naval army had been greatly impaired by the drastic 
abolition of privileges, brought about after the revolution of 1868. Since 
that time the nobility, the wealthy in the coast provinces have not con- 
tributed their due proportion to the marine service. Hence, a large pro- 
portion of the seamen and many of the officers, go on board the ships 
from the interior, with no sea habitudes. Every Spaniard is bound to 
serve with the colors after the age of nineteen, and it is made optional up 
to a certain number whether the conscript shall join the land or sea forces. 
Hence, while implicit confidence was generally expressed, by European 
critics, in the intelligence, skill and patriotism of the naval hierarchy, there 
was an admitted uncertainty as to the plain tar. 

This doubt was more than justified in the combat which involved the 
destruction of Cervera's fleet at Santiago. Our sailors found guns loaded 
and ready to fire, and other evidences of slack discipline and half-hearted 
endeavor. But Cervera and his staff supply the most explicit evidence. 
They declare that the officers were compelled to humor the gun crews 
with draughts of brandy, and stand over them with drawn cutlasses to 
keep them working the batteries. There are other and more signifi- 
cant circumstances to account for the astounding collapse of the Spanish 
sailor while fighting his ship. 

The official caste of a Spanish vessel preserves all the odious abuses that 
have been abolished from the navies of other and freer countries. The tales 



THE SPANISH SAILOR. Aft 

of inhumanity related of the tar's life on the conquered fleets, revive the 
excesses of old time British barbarism. Every ancient punishment identi- 
fied with the brutalities of the navy, still holds a place in the disciplim 
the Spanish fleets. From the moment the sailor sets his foot on the ves- 
sel, often entrapped by the petty officers, he is made to feel that no 
daring, no devotion to duty, can bring him into anything like equality 
with the officer. He is regarded as of another class of the human ; he 
is made to do the duty of a menial — from the caring for his superior's 
shoes, to washing his soiled linen. For the slightest infringement of the 
capricious and onerous regulations of the ship, he may be strung up by 
the thumbs, lashed on the naked back, or confined in an airless chamber, 
and fed — by a refinement of cruelty, on salt fish, until, mad with the 
delirium of thirst, he is haled out to take his chances of recovery, 
through burning fever. 

So ill is the fame of the treatment of the common sailor, that of late 
years the Spanish Admiralty have been compelled to wink at a very 
general practice of what is called " shanghaeing," that is the systematic 
search for stalwart youth, the leading them to places of depravity and 
hustling them on board ship, while in drunken stupor. This would 
hardly be considered a ^Tomising novitiate for a sailor, — but two-thirds 
of the crews that manied the ships of Great Britain down to within a 
half century, were obtained in this odious way ; with men thus impressed, 
Nelson won the combats that Britain reckons her chief glory. Yet with 
all this in mind, the critics of Europe professed the conviction that our 
improvised sailors would prove no match for these Spanish serfs. Nor is 
it unlikely that the knowledge of the status of the Spanish common 
sailor, gave Dewey and Schley and our commanders everywhere, the con- 
fidence that seemed recklessness. They knew that crews hating their 
officers could not be made to fight, as the humanely treated sailors of 
our navy fight. But to the Spaniard, the navy, in some occult sense 
typifies his religion, — his ancestry — the enshrined heroic phalanxes — 
from the dim beginning of the race until its apogee under Charles II. 

The naming of the ships attests at once the idealism and the credulity 
of the Spanish mind. Of old, the names of the Armadas embraced the rubrio 
of the saints. A British Admiral attacking a Spanish fleet in the last cen- 
tury felt as if he were invading heaven — for the names of most of the saints 
could be found on the Spanish hulls. The present fleets however, embalm 
the secular worthies of the race, from that wondrous hero Pelayo, to Don 
Antonio D'Ulloa— whose namesake went down in the harbor of Manila. 
Don Antonio was a scientist, who in moments of leisure, commanded his 
4 



64 SPAIN'S ADMIRALS. 

country's fleets and administered her colonies as viceroy. He was 




BOW OF THE " ALMIRANTE OQUENDO." 

governor of Louisiana during Spain's occupancy of that colony, but his 



NAVAL NOMENCLATURE. 66 

memory is cherished as the man who founded the observatory at Cadiz 
and the conception of the only important engineering works of a remark- 
able character on the peninsula. 

The Spaniard acquainted with the history of his country, must have re- 
flected on the irony of the naval nomenclature, when he read of the fate 
of the Almirante Oquendo — in the surf of Santiago. Oquendo is a name 
that holds about the same place in Spanish naval glory, that Far rag ut 
does in ours. Three generations of Oquendos distinguished themselves 
in the Spanish naval service, between the middle of the sixteenth and the 
middle of the seventeenth century. The Oquendo family belonged to 
the province of Vizcaya, and the second vessel of the fleet, strangely 
enough, bore the name, and went down with the Oquendo. The great 
Admiral, the father, held a place in the " Invincible Armada " correspond- 
ing to that of a commodore. He commanded the Guipuzcoa squadron. 
His son Antonio was ten years old at that time; at the age of twenty-six, 
in 1604, he commanded a squadron which destroyed a fleet of British cor- 
sairs. Three years later, Almirante Oquendo wrought havoc among the 
Dutch ships of war that were convoying the East India merchant fleet 
past the Spanish coast. In 1631 he gained a great victory over the 
Dutch Admiral, Adrian Hanspater, off the Argentine coast, and accord- 
ing to Spanish authorities, a Dutch fleet which Oquendo successfully 
withstood in the French Channel some years later, outnumbered the 
Spanish, by five vessels to one. Antonio de Oquendo, as well as Miguel 
his son, were and are regarded as the type of the Spaniard that gave 
Spain the world. 

But the vessel that Spaniards of all ranks and conditions regard with 
reverence is the Pelayo, the monarch of the Spanish navy — commemorat- 
ing a character, half historical, half mythical— the founder of the 
Spanish nation. Beyond the Cid— beyond all the great captains, mon- 
archs and conquistadores, Don Pelayo holds the reverential devotion of 
all Spaniards. He appeared in the seventh century, when Spain was the 
prey of the Moors. He is variously set forth as of the Roman race that 
peopled Spain, and the Goths that poured in from the Pyrenees front Ler. 
Pelayo made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and on his return found that 
the Moors in their conquering northward march, had subjugated his 
birthplace, the Asturias. He breathed the vigor of resistance into his 
clansmen. He raised an army and defeated the pagans. His victory 
was entered in the records of this time as " Miraculous," because the 
Moors were more than a thousand to Pelayo's one ! He was elected king 
by the Gothio "obles, and from that kingdom comes the dynasty of to- 



66 



NAVAL NOMENCLATURE. 



day. It is further of record, that Pelayo was the first Spaniard voted 
the right to use the title Don — hitherto employed only to designate saints. 
Spanish kings are always to this day called Don — as Don Alfonso XII. 
The Carlists pretenders adhere rigidly to the Don, and the title is in- 
separable from their name, whether ruliug or conspiring. 




TORPEDO BOAT IN A GALE. 



III. 

WAR once begun, invoked as the majority believed, recklessly, the 
country began to consider with poignant questioning the char- 
acter and resources of the antagonist we had challenged. Thirty years 
of controversy in the press, heated declamation in Congress and on the 
stump, had not disturbed the ancient admiration of the cultivated for the 
splendid qualities that had made Spain mighty and admirable in other 
days. Indeed, outside the ebullition of demagogues and the repulsive 
jargon of jingo presses, there was never a rancorous feeling against the 
Spanish people. Our literature from the first gropings of our earliest 
writers is filled with appreciation and even reverence for the master 
minds, and masterpieces of Spanish art. Next to Shakespeare, the 
genius of Cervantes finds its warmest and most generous admirers in this 
country. 

The historical studies of Prescott, of Washington Irving, Ticknor, to 
omit scores, have made the Spaniard of the past two centuries much more 
kin to us than the races on the British Isles, who sometimes acknowledge 
kinship when the condescension may serve a purpose. Nor can it ever be 
forgotten that in our struggle for life, Spain was only second to France 
in the material aid given our forefathers. Indeed, had the Spanish court 
refused to add the weight of Spain's alliance, France might never have 
ventured to send her armies and fleets so far from the kingdom. Nor 
was it forgotten that in the court of Spain our modest envoys, both 
before and after the war, received distinguished consideration, only 
second to that lavished on Franklin in the court of France. That the 
Spanish monarch and Castilian grandees suspended the most cherished 
forms of etiquette to make easier for our homely diplomats, the onerous 
burdens they encountered in Europe. That personal amity existed be- 
tween Washington, the Republican leaders, and the successor of the 
Hapsburg Caesar. The curious too, recalled that it was to the inter- 
vention of this good-natured monarch, we owe the domestication of that 
grotesque but invaluable beast of burden — the mule, for it was from his 
royal stables, in Andalusia, that the first of that hybrid race came to this 
country, a present to General Washington, sent on the suggestion of 
Lafayette. Nor was it forgotten that after our independence had been 
wrung from the hateful shackles of the arrogant Briton, our ministers 

C.69J 



TO SPAIN'S AVAILABLE FORCES. 

forced to endure endless affronts from the British courts, were upheld and 
vindicated by Spanish confraternity. But it was in the pages of Spain's 
history, that the mind of the people became imbued with what may be 
called identity of sentiment. The illustrious men who ventured into the 
new world, now dominated by this republic, seemed in some incom- 
municable way, our own ancestors. 

The conquistadores — from Columbus to Cortez, from Cortez to De Soto, 
are enshrined among our national worthies under the majestic dome of 
the nation's capital. The deeds of these great men are part of our heritage. 
Cortez is as much the wonder and delight of the children of this republic, 
as Daniel Boone or the stalwart yeomen who illustrated the settlement 
of the great West. A boy of this republic would hold it shame not to 
know the thrilling story of Cortez, the Arabian tale of Pizarro. The first 
sentiment, when Spain stood before us as a foe, was the consciousness of 
the task of confronting a race capable of the deeds recorded of the con- 
quistadores. Even though diminished in numbers, despoiled of her world 
realms, the victim of political bravos and childish bigotries, to the 
imagination we were going forth to battle with a race that had conquered 
every people in the world in other days. 

The presses, the reviews teemed with studies of the available fleets and 
armies of Spain. This was taken up all over the world. It was the em- 
phatically expressed opinion of experts and amateurs that the first action 
at sea, if not on land, would go ill with the improvised army and navy of 
the republic. The comparison of the available war forces did seem 
appalling, when set forth by men trained in analyzing the effectiveness of 
armaments. It was agreed from the first that the conflict would be 
mostly on the sea. There was never an idea expressed, either in Spain or 
Europe, that the monarchy would attempt the invasion of the republic. 
Cuba was by common agreement recognized as the battlefield, but even 
in that field it was maintained there would be little beyond a blockade, 
the island being in the nature of a fortress, assailable only by overwhelm- 
ing fleets, whose business it would be to starve the garrison into 
surrender. 

The conviction was nowhere disputed in Europe, that the republic 
would make no effort to carry hostilities to the Spanish mainland; it was 
even held improbable that the naval operations would extend beyond 
Atlantic waters. In this preconception of the field of operations, certain, 
obvious advantages were universally conceded to the enemy. 

Spain's fleets were more numerous, her great battleships, some of which 
had been viewed with awe in our own harbors, where the workmanship of the- 



THE REPUBLIC'S NAVY. 71 

foremost yards of Europe in handicraft and invention. Her marines had 
long been trained in the handling of these mighty forces. Her offici 
were reckoned among the most accomplished in Christendom. Almost 
constant warfare, during the last ten years, had given their rank and file, 
the experience which alone can make the operations of fleets certain oi 
effective. In Havana, and its ideal harbor, Spain possessed a base, perfect 
for defence or attack. Her ships, gathered under the impregnable walls 
of Morro Castle and the ominous miles of forts commanding the water, 
could from the outset compel the naval movements to take such form as 
the Spanish Cabinet might seek. This republic could be put on the 
defensive ; never certain whether the squadrons of the enemy were to 
strike at our forts, or, by manoeuvering with the advantages of greater 
celerity, draw our fleets into ambush and destroy them in detail. For, 
added to other advantages, all the more formidable ships of the enemy 
were reputed greater in speed, by several miles an hour, than the swiftest 
of our defenders. 

The navy, at the immediate disposal of the administration, was more 
formidable on paper than in arms. All the world could see what we had, 
for the status of both army and fleet is presented yearly, to the uttermost 
detail, to Congress. The list comprised four armored battle ships of the 
first-class, launched and ready— five under way. Two armored cruisers 
of the second-class. Two armored cruisers of no class ; one armored ram. 
Thirteen protected cruisers — that is partly covered with steel ; seventeen 
gunboats; five torpedo boats. Beside these there were six monitors, 
designed more for coast defence than actual action at sea. But beyond 
these the sea administration had the potentialities of an almost indefinite 
auxiliary navy. For no sooner was the war a fact, than private in- 
dividuals crowded forward to put strong and fleet vessels of the most 
modern type, at the service of the authorities. Equal to this significant 
augmentation, great liners, that had attained world-wide fame for the 
speed of their journeys across the ocean, were quickly transformed into 
formidable cruisers, as was shown on the Cuban coast; they answered 
admirably to supplement the regular battle fleets. Indeed, one of the 
incidents that gave the country immense gratification was the disabling of 
the Spanish torpedo boat the Terror, by the guns of the transformed 
American liner St. Paul, under command of the captain of the Maine— 
Sigsbee. Every naval expert in the world had looked forward to the 
havoc bound to be wrought in the unwieldly vessels of the new type, by 
the torpedo craft, swift sailing, slight in structure, but armed with appli- 
ances that once launched at an ironclad, no armor could resist. The 



72 



THE "ST. PAUL" AND " TERROR." 



incredible conquests achieved by our fleets, hardly won more attention in 
Europe, than this slight encounter of the St. Paul and the Terror. For 
it was accepted as evidence, that in the hands of a resolute commander, 
the iron masses that make up the modern war ship, are not necessarily at 
the mercy of the torpedo boat. This however was a rash assumption, for 




ST. PAUL " DISABLING THE " TERROR. " 



our Gushing demonstrated that in the hands of a resolute man'the torpedo 
is fatal. Of late years there had been immense interest' shown in the 
new navy. The " White Fleet " had been pictured in every journal in the 
country. Every schoolboy could possess photographs of favorite vessels. 
The manning of the ships too, had aroused state and civic sentiment. 
Most of the vessels named after states and cities, had received services of 
plate to enable the officers to fitly entertain at the ship's tables. These 
gifts were made up from contributions representing all grades of the life 
of the republic. The creation too, of a naval reserve, at which the wise 
in the old world, jeered unceasingly, made the extemporization of a 
marine as facile as the creation of an army, 
i There were both high inspiration and vague apprehension in the horizon 



CONTINENTAL FLEETS. 7.; 

of hopes the commanders of our fleets carried into the operation with 
Spain. They were inspired by the unbroken record of valor in our navies 
—from 1775 during five wars— or sea campaigns. In all of these our 
mariners had maintained an incontrovertible superiority ovei every adver- 
sary encountered. The Continental fleets, though contemptible in size, 
and few in number, wrought a havoc in the ranks of the British in almost 
grotesque disproportion to their bulk in build. Fur the sailors were un- 
trained, the vessels improvised, the armaments haphazard. Yet the fig- 
ures collated at the end of the war, revealed the surprising fact that the 
volunteer fleets, comprising privateers mostly, captured eight hundred of 
the enemy's vessels. By the computation, agreed upon as a fair average, 
fifteen men to a ship, the total number of prisoners could not have been 
under 12,000. This was wrought by a force that never exceeded 5,000 
men. Among these 12,000 taken by our navy, there were at the low- 
est estimate, one thousand regular soldiers, the flower of the British army, 
whose capture by the land forces would have ranked as a decisive victory. 
But the record of actual battles at sea, when our navy was an inchoate 
experiment, compares with the marvels of the campaigns with Spain. 
John Paul Jones, no matter what the disparity of forces, the inferiority 
of his ships, never hesitated to attack a British ship, wherever encoun- 
tered. The history of no navy recurds a oriumph so striking as the victorv 
of the Bon Homme Richard over the British ship Serapis. In all that 
makes seamanship admirable, the infant attempts of the republic rank 
with the finest achievements known in sea literature. 

It was in 1812 however, that the fleets of the republic eclipsed all 
rivalry — taking the proportions into consideration. Though inferior to 
the British in number and armaments of vessels, our successes at sea 
were only second to the record made in the late war, and strangely 
enough, our most striking victories were won at a cost always in ariiailng 
disproportion to the casualties suffered. During the two years^and five 
months the war lasted, the Yankee fleets, cruisers, and privateers bap 
tured fifteen hundred vessels from the British flag, — with more than 20,000 
prisoners. Conditions considered, this is even more striking than the 
destruction of Spain's fleets, by -Dewey and Schley — for Spain never pre- 
sumed to the rank of the British on the seas, even in the days of her 
might. 

In 1812, Britain was the undisputed mistress of every navigable sea in 
the known world. She had by the foulest of foul play, destroyed the 
navies of the lesser powers, and by the genius and sometimes perfidy >>( 
her admirals, crushed the fleets and suspended the marine growth of her 



74 "THE WHELP OF THE LION." 

only rival — France. She was as indisputably master of the sea as Napo- 
leon was of the land. British journals, seamen and military men, hailed 
the war with the " Yankee vipers " as the signal to " redeem the error " — 
committed in 1781 — when a weak ministry conceded the " rabble " of the 
colonies — independence. The republic was to be crushed in a campaign, 
its derisory navy swept from the seas by blank cartridges. During the 
thirty months this war lasted, there were eighteen engagements fought: 
the despised Yankees conquered in fifteen. But even more ominous than 
the defeats the British sustained at the hands of our mariners, the dispar- 
ity of the losses numbed the British. Though not quite so marked in the 
disparity of the killed and wounded, as in Dewey's and Schley's combats, 
the British losses were frightful as compared with ours. The results of 
every encounter of our men-of-war and the British, were marked by 
slaughter on the enemy's ships and but trifling loss on our own. But 
the British were unwilling to draw the same deduction that they pro- 
nounce to-day — namely that the " whelp of the lion shows the origin of 
his superiority " as one of the London Reviews summed up the battle of 
Santiago. 

In the famous action between the crack British frigate Macedonian, 
thirty-eight guns and the United States, forty guns, out of three hundred 
men, the enemy's loss was thirty-six killed and sixty-eight wounded — 
while our loss was seven wounded and five killed. The difference of two 
guns in our favor, was more than compensated by the more effective am- 
munition of the Macedonian. Indeed, the larger number of guns on the 
United States war ships of those days, was generally condemned as an 
error — for it made the ship unwieldly and more difficult to manipulate at 
a time when sails were the single locomotive power. The validity of this 
criticism was soon shown by the diminution of the number of guns. But 
every encounter told the same tale. When the Frolic was taken by the 
Wasp, the British had fifteen killed and forty-seven wounded out of 487 
— our "Wasp" had five killed and five wounded. When our Hornet 
vanquished the British Peacock in eleven minutes, the list was, five killed 
and thirty-three wounded out of 130 men, while we had but three men 
slightly injured. The tale might be carried to every encounter with 
nearly the same result. All Britain made an outcry when these astound- 
ing discrepancies leaked out in the press. "London" — The Times of that 
period solemnly announced," was covered by a degree of gloom, painful to 
observe." Disasters on land, the British had long been accustomed to 
bear, but to be beaten at sea, by a despised and derided republic, the 
" scum of Europe," as British publicists were in the habit of designating 



FALSE MEASUREMENTS. 75 

the colonies, rankled for many a year in the mind of the privileged 
classes. 

But the remedy was soon found. I question whether one in a thou- 
sand of the people of this republic, however proud of the record of our 
ancestors — knows that the victories won by our forefathers, were if not on 
equal terms, in most cases at a disadvantage to our marines. The British 
writers and naval pundits at once took the matter in hand. The naval 
;histories embalming the operations of the fleets, explain the humiliating 
show made with the king's navy, by alleging superior tonnage against the 
unfortunates, in every instance. Hence it is so written and so accepted. 
That is, every conquest made by the United States ships, was due to the 
heavier build of the winning vessel. Then it is set forth circumstantially 
that in every instance where the Yankees came out best, the British 
ships were old, rotten, inadequately manned or shackled by untrained 
crews. In a comprehensive history of the United States navy, Maclay 
has taken pains to go to the fountain head of evidence in the matter. 
He accumlates proof on proof to show that the British record is a tissue 
of falsehoods; that in every case the United States vessel was older in 
build and less complete in equipment. In the tonnage pretext— which 
the general reader accepts, because the explanation is rather technical, 
the British claim is squarely in the teeth of the facts. To palliate their 
defeats and the enormous slaughter wrought among the crews, the ac- 
cepted historians assert that the Yankee frigates were from forty to fifty 
per cent, larger than their conquered antagonists. This was plausibly 
shown by the method of measurement in those days. Half the vessel's 
breadth at the broadest part was taken as the depth. Three-fifths of the 
breadth was deducted from the length of the hull, the remainder was 
multiplied by the breadth and this result divided by ninety-five. By 
this method the United States ship was in every instance shown to be of 
greater proportions, and for this reason. 

From the very beginning of our naval construction, New England and 
Baltimore shipbuilders discovered a genius for the improvement of vessels. 
The form indeed of "The Baltimore Clipper," as well as the New Eng- 
land "Sea Bird," was known wherever the sea carried the navies of com- 
merce. It was on these docks the long graceful curving lines of our ships 
first took form. By cutting off all the structure between the water line 
and the keel the Yankee craft gave the appearance of solid lines down to 
the bottom, whereas, in fact, they slanted off even with the water line. 
The British vessels, on the other hand, were built on the old and ugly 
lines, which are illustrated by a canal boat. It requires no technical 



76 A HISTORIC LIE. 

training to perceive the differences in weight. A Yankee craft, to all in- 
tents and appearances as heavy as a ship of the same size built squarely 
down to the keel, was, in fact, not much more than half the weight, for she 
had two of her angles cut off. But the falsehood did its work. Even the 
warmest champions of our 1812 heroes, have conceded that the ships were 
heavier — because the historical lie stands sealed by the official imprimatur. 
This fantastic method of measurement was adopted by experts, to rob the 
United States of the credit, won in the encounters with British ships, 
and as it is difficult to comprehend, and ostensibly perfectly above board, 
the British contention has gone into history; even writers on this side of 
the water, adopting the plea. But the rule of measurement thus applied 
to war vessels, was devised for custom-house purposes, to guage the col- 
lection of revenues. For this use it was perhaps fair enough, but it was 
grossly misleading in measuring the proportions of United States vessels, 
even merchantmen. The plan of the British frigate showed that the ex- 
treme length of the deck was maintained nearly the whole distance be- 
tween the bow and the stern. The rake of the stem and the stern posts 
of the Yankee frigate was uniformly greater than in the case of the 
British. From measurements taken at the custom-house in Baltimore in 
1812. it was made plain that a merchant vessel built on the plan of the 
British Macedonian, registered 300 tons and was able to carry 400 hogs- 
heads of tobacco, while a ship of the same tonnage, but built on the lines 
of the United States frigate, could carry only 100 hogsheads. It is true 
that the United States forty-four gun frigate in the war of 1812 was 
from ten to fifteen feet longer than the British thirty-eight gun frigate, 
but owing to the rake of the stem and stern posts in our vessels not an 
extra gun could be put into the broadside, there being just fifteen ports 
in the side in both ours and the British ship. 

Another matter upon which some stress has been laid by the British, is 
the heaviness of the metal carried on our frigates. It is a fact that the 
United States vessels were armed with twenty-four pounders on the main 
deck, while the British ships carried only eighteen pounders. At the time 
of the war of 1812, however,, the use of twenty-four pounders, as the main 
armament of frigates,, was largely experimental, with the weight of ex- 
perience and authority against them. British commanders insisted that 
twenty-four pounders were too heavy and could not be worked as effec- 
tually as eighteen pounders. It was clearly demonstrated that our three 
frigates of the forty-four gun. class, were overweighted, and the experience 
of, the first battles in which they were engaged, disclosed the truth to their 
commanders. In the first actions o£ the war,-. the Constitution carried 



YANKEE CREWS. 79 

fifty-five guns in all, with a total weight in shot of 1,401 pounds; before 
the close of the war, her armament was reduced to fifty-one guns, having 
a total shot weight of 1,287 pounds. The " United States" in her act inn 
with the Macedonian carried fifty-four guns to the enemy's forty-nine, but 
on returning to port six of the United States guns were discarded, as it 
was found that their great weight had caused the frigate to become 
" hogged," or broken-backed. The third of these frigates, the President, 
also reduced the number of her guns to fifty-two, but even this was not 
sufficient to prevent her from becoming "hogged." Overweight was the 
cause of her being overtaken and brought to grief by a British squadron 
in 1815. 

The Yankee ships and Yankee crews of 1812 overcame the British 
enemy for just the same reasons that they would to-day. Because the 
ships were better built, but above all, because every shot fired from a 
Yankee deck, represented a man who had a right to himself; every man 
was fighting for his own and his children's heritage, while the Briton was 
fighting for pay, for a sovereign he had never seen, or might ever hope to 
see; for a constitution which took no more note of the man or the mass, 
than the ukase of the Czar or the irade of the Padishah. Not a man, how- 
ever humbly employed in the republic's marine, forgets for an instant, that 
it depends on himself whether he remains in the galley or mounts to the 
bridge; a rail splitter was president of the republic; there is no insuper- 
able obstacle to a stoker taking the place occupied by James A. Garfield, 
driver of a canal team. The outworn phrase that began to fill the British 
press — "the man behind the gun," has a vastl}' different meaning from 
that inferred. When the man feels that he has a right in himself — the gun 
is part of him, but the man behind the British gun, has never felt that, 
and he never can. 

Uplifting as the retrospect of the early wars, there were still more gran- 
diose pictures evoked in recalling the stupendous burdens borne by the 
navy in the Civil War. The deeds of Ellet, of Dupont, of Foote, in the 
early days of the war, when the navy was almost held in derision, until 
Grant's forces were rescued at Belmont, Shiloh, and aided to victory at 
Donelson and Fort Henry. These inland prodigies could not be imi- 
tated or emulated in Cuban waters. With this double sentiment ani- 
mating officers and crew, there was still another, and this weighed with 
poignant pressure on the thought of the whole country. The stupendous 
fighting machines we had fabricated during the last fifteen years were ob- 
jects of unknown force. The mere manning of these involved the tech 
nical familiarity with abstrusities hitherto associated with expert crafts- 



80 



MODERN FIGHTING MACHINES. 



men, trained in engineering and the mechanic arts. What certainty that 
the various corps of skilled artisans would be able to keep presence of 
mind, during the pandemonium of actual warfare? Even the least im- 
aginative could invoke the actualities of the crash and carnage of battle ; 
in the meeting of two iron and steel masses, vomiting tons of metal, whose 
mere impact crushes the stoutest shield. Masses that would plough 
through yards of masonry; masses hurled three, four and five miles over 
the surface of the water as surely as in other days the puny missiles of the 
six pounder, were sped. 

Nor were the horrors involved in the new life at sea for a moment for- 
gotten, or ignored. Masses of 300 to 700 men sealed under iron rafters, 




WORKING THE BIG TURRET GUNS ON THE IOWA. 

iron partitions, iron gangways, and even in the calm watches of the night 
immured in the foetid atmosphere of an iron vault. With such constraint, 
with such vicissitudes, would the old-time constancy and valor avail to 
keep the body of men equal to the unspeakable ordeal of combat? When 
the fatal hour arrived, when the demoniac hail pattered on the decks, 
could human nature find physical reserves to support the superadded 



THE INSTINCT OF THE SHIP. 81 

strain? Millions put themselves in the sailor's place ; they saw the dis- 
tant outline of the enemy's squadrons barring the blue horizon ; they 
heard the venomous screeching of the trial shells, searching for the range. 
They felt the agonizing expectancy, when, everything breakable, inflam- 
mable, cleared from the adamantine decks, the sea soldiery, swarmed to their 
allotted places; here a group at the guns, there a reserve aligned in 
ranks to fill the places of the dead and disabled. The very ship seems 
instinct with the coming death. The thrill and throb of the engines enter 
into a frightful rhythmic sympathy with the awful crisis. From the faces 
of the men, great beads of sweat roll down in streams, while with lips 
compressed, each fated figure waits his prescribed function. The captain 
of the ship stands in the place of terror, the tribune of the deck; about 
him the lesser officers wait immobile. The guns, as if endowed with con- 
sciousness, lunge far outward, spying the point where they can carry 
most fatal destruction. Everything is glowering — formidable — the en- 
ginery of Pandemonium — -waiting the signal. In this prelude of tension, 
that no words can make real, sea and sky seem blurred, by the apparition 
of the potential ministers of slaughter. It would be a relief to the wait- 
ing man, to feel the shells strike the iron ramparts, to get a touch of the 
reality ; all thus far is of the supernatural. 

The conviction that suddenly flashes into every man reared in peace, 
indoctrinated in the amenities of the creed of Christ, is that the ocean is 
a dream, that he cannot in reality, be sailing the summer seas, in search 
of other men nurtured in the same doctrine, to slay; to be slain ; to inflict 
all that earthquakes, storms and natural agencies visit upon the helpless. 
This fleeting, whimsical ratiocination, is the supreme agony of man in 
battle — after that the ferocious instinct of slaughter holds him as in a 
fever. For with the bidding to let loose the thunder of the guns, a con- 
tracting condition comes in instantaneous swiftness. The exhilaration of 
being a vengeance, an instrument of a people's wrath, exalts the feeblest, 
stimulates the ardent, to another sphere of fairly preternatural effort. 
The shock of the speeding mass of metal, as it quits the brazen maw of 
the gun, induces of itself, an electric current, as the ship staggers under 
her own vitalities. A fierce joy displaces this sombre tension of the long 
expectancy. The words of command, no longer the perfunctory mono- 
tones of death, but shrilling with a meaning, that portends, death or life, 
subdue the apprehensions and swiften the movements of the thunderbolt 
launchers. 

To this phantasm of the imagination— the millions added the down- 
pour of lead ; the din, infernal, and malignant, of the shells bursting 



82 



FEEDING THE FIRES. 



where the massed men are plying the guns. Appalling as these spectral 
anticipations — there were even more grewsome deeps in the minds of the 
families — who had brothers, sons, or kin on the terrible structures, that 
preserve and destroy. In the sirocco breath of the engine caves, nude 
figures are seen feeding the roaring furnaces. They are far below the 




RAPID FIRE GUN ON SHIPBOARD. 

water's level; hundreds of tons of metal are above and about them. 
Every thrill through the fuliginous mass, may mean death in the most 
atrocious form to these grimy gnomes. What after all is the heroism of 
a Hobson, the valor of a Dewey or a Schley, to the inconceivable con- 
stancy of these perpetual immolators of self? Is there not then something 
incomparably rare in the patient devotion of that amazing body of men, 
who alone make it possible to put the exquisite inventions of science to 
the deadly uses involved in war? Heroism can take no more awe-inspir- 
ing form than this abnegation of the brave in the deeps of the iron hulks, 
denied the sustaining sunlight, the companionship of the common aven- 
gers and defenders. He cannot even know whether death is coming by 
shell or torpedo. He must wait until the waters gulf him in the briny 



APPALLING ANTICIPATIONS. 



88 



maelstrom. Not many bethought themselves of these momentous f 
in the prevoyant anguish that hovered over our fleets, as they gathered 
in Cuban waters. And while the actual destruction was soared our 
kindred, the horrors herein adumbrated, were actualities on the magnifi- 
cent ships of the wretched Spaniards; indeed these imaginings ten fold 
inluridated would but feebly reproduce the inferno of each of the ships 
that our guns battered into tortured masses of shapeless ruin. 




LOADING A GUN ON THE TEXAS. 



IV. 



BARELY had the word of war been spoken when the malevolent in- 
fluence of the " yellow " press began to make itself felt in the con- 
duct of affairs. - There were millions who remembered the disasters 
forced upon Lincoln's administration by the clamor, " On to Bull Run ! " 
In the history of the Crimean War, Kinglake devotes a section of un- 
equalled brilliancy to the influence of the press upon a nation at war. 
He describes with absorbing and sustained force the gradual shifting of 
the initiative from the grasp of the departments of State, to the editorial 




VOLUNTEERING IN NEW YORK. 



sanctum of the Times newspaper. Commanders in the field, councils, 
every responsible source of action, worked in paralysis compared with 
the potentiality of the Orphic utterances of the press. Before a squadron 
could be reasonably expected to be ready, the yellow press began a vocif 

CS5) 



36 



THE RAW RECRUITS. 



erous demand for action, for results, for the doing of things that would 
enable "enterprise" to publish "extras." Insensibly the disposition of 
the people was influenced by the incessant iteration. 

The troops called out by the President were so-to-speak as naked as the 
newborn babe. Everything had to be done to give them a semblance of 
cohesive force. It was necessary to assign camps accessible to the va- 
rious groups of quotas. Chickamauga, identified with one of the momen- 
tous battles of the Civil War, was selected as the rendezvous for the 
middle division of the Union. The daily papers were filled with the 
admirable disposition of the youth of the land to take up the burden of 
battle ; thousands in every state offered themselves to the recruiting ofn- 




THE " PURITAN " IN ACTION AT MATANZAS. 

cers. The people, thrown into alarm by the vehemence of the press, 
vaguely felt that the recruit was a soldier the moment he signed his name 
to the muster-roll. The yellow press daily proclaimed that the navy was 
ready and able to " end the war in a week " ; that the 200,000 men had 
nothing to do but march to the sea and sail over to Cuba. It was even 
argued in the noisiest and most potential of the metropolitan presses, that 




•I,: 



/ 



- 



OUR NAVY AT MATANZAS. 



80 



there was no use for the calling out of the soldiery; that the navy was 
equal to the conquest of Cuba and the Spanish holdings in the ( !aribbean 
Sea. 

When, on April 24th the fleet made a slight test of its guns at Matan 
zas, there was a furious denunciation of the administration for withhold- 
ing the tars from "real war." The President was represented as bent 
upon a " kind hearted war " in which there should be merely tentative 
bombardments of fleets and strong places. Much was made of the fre- 




SPANISH PRIZES IN KEY WEST HARBOR. 



quency and facility of the captures on the high seas. The whole country 
was thrown into merriment by the audacities of the hastily-improvised 
cruisers and blockaders, attacking the most formidable of Spanish craft 
and dragging them into port as prizes. Indeed, for a fortnight the 
southern ports were incapable of harboring the immense fleets of nier- 




© 



iZSL 



SPANISH PRIZES. 



91 



chant vessels, that fell a prey to our energetic craft. The incidents gave 
rise to embittered controversy abroad, where it was sneeringly deduced 
that the mercantile spirit of the Yankee was, as usual, (lie preeminent 




CAPTURED SPANISH OFFICERS ON THE "NASHVILLE. 



phase of the conflict. By international law, an enemy's ships, when war 
is declared, are entitled to thirty days' warning. We, on the contrary, 
had barely broken relations with Spain, when our ships swarmed in every 



92 



THE ADMINISTRATIVE BUREAUX. 



avenue of commerce, to surprise vessels whose commanders had no sus- 
picion of hostilities. Sordid calculation of the " money in it " for our 
sailors and our treasury filled the presses. For a time, it would have been 
natural to suppose that the war had been declared to enable our fleets to 
accumulate prize-money ! 

Meanwhile the harassed administrative bureaux were straining the 
new and creaking machinery to make soldiers out of the admi- 
rable material proffered. But soldiers cannot be made by mere de- 




L1GHT AND HEAVY UNIFORMS. 

crees. The regimenting and brigading, the mobilization of 200,000 
men can only be rightly done in prescribed ways. In other countries, 
these ways have been prepared for years — where people live as in an 
armed camp. With our small, but ample army of 25,000 men, we have 
no machinery for putting four times that number in military harness. 
Everything was to be done. Uniforms were to be made, the innumer- 



LESSONS OF THE CIVIL WAR. 98 

able requirements of men huddled in masses and obliged to supply them- 
selves with food, covering all the needs of life, in short. Even the trans- 
portation of these hastily formed bodies of troops presented difficulties. 
The railways could not supply trains promptly; groups of men v 
shifted and sent astray, when the camps of organization were located. It 
was found that there were no provisions for shelter, uniforming, even 
drilling. The regulars were hurried to the deadly sand-dunes of the 
Florida coast, ready for actual service ; but alone, it was held they were 
unequal to attacking the least of the Spanish strong places. 

In this interval disputations arose in most of the states over the terms 
upon which the militia might be made use of to serve under the Presi- 
dent's call. The rank and file of the state troops in every case waived 
all rights to immunity from foreign service, and eagerly demanded the 
privilege of upholding the republic wherever her interests were at stake. 
In the war bureaux at Washington it was seen that an early movement 
would be perilous; that aside from the always present danger of the 
Cuban climate, it would be murder to dispatch untrained ranks to encoun- 
ter the veterans defending Cuba's strong places. Coincident with diffi- 
culties and embarrassments inseparable from the extemporizing of so 
large an army, one of the most vicious defects of our system came to add 
to the confusion, inefficiency and benumbing fatalities of the situation. 
The place-hunter, denied the usual spoils of office in the civil service, in- 
sisted on having the officering of the new levies. 

We had costly lessons in this very evil during the Civil War. We had 
seen presuming politicians in command of regiments, brigades, army 
corps, departments, in a million posts requiring the training and exper- 
ience of men educated in our military schools; it was supposed that the 
administration thus admonished would stand between the soldiery and 
these soulless cormorants. There are volumes attesting the thousands 
slaughtered on every field of the Civil War by the intrusion of political 
adventurers; the lessons had been so deeply impressed that the country 
heard with a shock of indignant disbelief, that senators and representa- 
tives were making it impossible to carry on the war, unless commissions 
were given to "workers," relatives, and influential nobodies. The coun- 
try was swarming with the graduated men, who had devoted years to the 
study and practice of the art of war. There were enough accomplished 
graduates of West Point to officer a million men safely and competently. 
Not one in a thousand of these men, eager to return something to the 
republic in zealous, enlightened devotion for the education given, could 
even get a hearing. The rich sons of affluent politicians, the profligate 



94 THE "ROUGH RIDERS." 

kinsmen of war-time personalities, were given staff appointments, places 
the most difficult to fill, and upon whose proper filling depends the safety 
of the masses sent under fire. 

The lamentable effects became apparent in every attempt to move the 
inchoate legions. Indeed, the picture given of the hopeless tangle at the 
various camps, became so disheartening, that the executive departments 
were constrained to promise that no more of this murderous nepotism 
should be carried on. But the country remarked that in every batch of 
appointments sent to the Senate, the "political pull " still made itself felt, 
and made itself felt to the end. Naturally, there was delay, confusion, 
hardships in the mobilization of the army, for the indispensable machinery 
was defective from its inception. The pictures that reached the country 
from Key West, Tampa and other points of rendezvous, gave promise of 
the disasters that signalized the years 1861, and '62. Even when exper- 
ienced men were put in place, the selections seemed based on other than 
consideration of fitness for the peculiar campaigns involved. 

The administrative officers were in many instances long past the age of 
vigor. Veterans from both the Confederate and Union armies were 
promptly named, but they were frequently men who had not been identi- 
fied with happy campaigns or individual initiative; on the other hand 
the most eminent of the groups who had conducted armies with precision 
and success were passed by. Under these conditions, the armies assem- 
bled in Florida and at the rendezvous in the interior, did not impress the 
solicitous as likely to meet the crisis. But with these shortcomings and 
vices, there were imposing evidences of the devotion and constancy of the 
soldier, that to a great extent made up for the lack of leadership. 

Perhaps the most significant demonstration of this spirit of the country 
was the organization of a regiment which became the joy of the para- 
graphers and the pundits of the press. Theodore Roosevelt, a rich young 
New Yorker, who had figured frequently as a reformer in the insurrections 
of New York City politics during the last decade, resigned the responsi- 
ble place of assistant secretary of the navy, to become a subaltern in a 
regiment designed to do and dare. Under the characteristic designation 
of the " Rough Riders," Roosevelt almost in a day, gathered the most dis- 
parate groups of the republic's adventurers. The recruits came from the 
scholastic seclusion of Harvard, from the wild life of the plains, from the 
gilded clubs of the metropolis, the Capauan splendors of millionaire 
palaces. The cowboy and the dude, the pioneer and the dilletante jostled 
each other in the ranks that were formed almost in a day. The gathering 
of this unique organization, the roster of its bizarre personalities, was read 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 



96 



from day to day, with delight and laughter. The drilling and disciplin- 
ing of the mass, the Crcesan gifts of the privates to the regiment, the 
readiness of the aristocratic contingent to fall into the squalid details of 
camp life, made a page of piquant interest for the whole country. 

Roosevelt, himself, was the most interesting figure; a man of letters, 




A GROUP OF ROUGH RIDERS. 



eager, impulsive, absorbed in everything he undertook, he was indulgently 
admired by even those who distrusted his sagacity or opposed his ideals. 
He was the chief of the jingo voices in all international ardors. He had 
been the candidate of his party for mayor of New York. He had been 
put at the head of the metropolitan police commission on the overthrow 
of Tammany in 1895 — and made the life of his compatriots gay by his 
original administration of this apparently uncongenial post. He had 
written voluminous pamphlets in a semi-historical vein, on the settling of 



96 



A MOTLEY LEGION. 



the West, and had made himself the idol of the groups that demanded a 
big navy, a big army — everything big in fact that the tax payer distrusts. 
In his new endeavor, Roosevelt brought the same irrestrainable energy 
to the task that had given him eminence in other enterprises. He mas- 
tered the rubric of the tactics and set to work to drill his motley legion 
with the assiduous delight of a Prussian martinet. In the long journey 
from the regiment's rendezvous, at San Antonio, Texas, to Tampa, the 
rough riders were a magnet to the inhabitants from far and near. The 
farmers and villagers who had read for years of the "400 " of New York, 
flocked to the railway, to catch a glimpse of the scions of these mysterious 
potencies, transformed into private soldiers of the republic. The famous 
athletes, the notorious cowboys, the equivocal of mining camps and Buf- 
falo Bill shows, were no less embodiments of wonder to the country 
through which the squadrons passed. In every city they were feted, 
caressed, glorified. But for that matter, no body of men bearing the in- 
signia of the republic were neglected, as the trains bearing them, dragged 
an uncertain course to the decisive point of embarkation. We shall see 
them in the strain and storm of cruel trial, and find that the touch of one 
hand, impressed some of the rare qualities, that make steadfast troops — 
but even in the almost bouffe heroism, we shall likewise see that soldiers 
are not made, officers are not created by mere proclamations. 









INSPECTING A DYNAMITE GU.N. 





Captain Charles V. Gridley. 



Commander Asa Walker. 





LlEUT.-COMMANDER JoHN E. PlLLSlil KY. 



Commander Bowman II. McCalla. 



BOOK TWO. 
I. 

ON the Sunday morning of the first of May, the war being nine days 
old, a thrilling rumor stopped the groups wending their way to 
church. Across vague leagues of sea and land, from the uttermost width 
of the globe came a tale of conquest. The flag of the republic had been 
victorious in a combat upon the fortunes of which depended a vast colony. 
The distance, the mystery of the ships engaged, the sum of death and de- 
struction, were for twenty-four hours a poignant anguish to the electrified 
people. Gradually, the country learned that the almost unknown squad- 
ron of Commodore Dewey, stationed in Chinese waters, had in obedience 
to a curt order from the navy department, sailed from Hong Kong, sought 
the enemy at his strong place and fought him until not a vessel was left 
to fly the enemy's flag. There had been light talk and fanciful conjecture 
in the public prints, on the possibilities of our Asiatic squadron doing 
something to make the Spaniards uneasy for their last and most splendid 
possession in the East, but the most sanguine never ventured to hope 
that the first blow of the war would result in a conquest, such as great 
powers consider ample gain for a long campaign. 

Many causes had combined to bring about an increase in our Asiatic 
squadron, even before the authorities had any clear apprehension of war. 
The late astounding aggression of Germany on the territory of China, in a 
time of peace, had suggested the need of ample sea power to safeguard 
our immense commercial interests in Oriental waters. The threatening- 
complications between Britain and Russia, gave promise of a partition o( 
the unwieldly domains of the Celestial empire, such as the world has been 
witnessing in Africa. It is inferable too, that the sagacious statesman at 
the head of the navy department, had a prevoyant instinct in the matter, 
when he selected the men and the craft for the station. Whether fortui- 
tous or designed, the republic was miraculously served. One of the de- 
cisive victories rarely achieved in war, was fought and won, almost before 
the republic had adjusted its armor for the fray. To the country, the 
news came with all the fascinating unexpectedness, that made the new- 
world conquests tales of marvel to the Europeans of three centuries ag 
when successive caravels, brought to the monarch of the Spains, the title 
deeds of lands far surpassing his inherited realms in extent. 

It is on record that Dewey himself, accepted the Asiatic billet with re- 

(99) 



100 COMMERCIAL DIPLOMACY. 

luctance, counting the Atlantic as the only chance for the fleets, in the 
by no means probable event of hostilities. It was set down to his credit, 
that having the right to an Atlantic assignment, he magnanimously 
yielded to the request of a brother officer, whose term was nearing an 
end, and hoped that if there were need for action he might have a chance 
to wind up his career gloriously. 

Hong Kong is a world harbor ; seized by the British in the first epoch 
of European predation upon China, the port is open to the commerce and 
navies of the world. In this harbor, Commodore Dewey waited with a 
sailor's impatience, the fateful word that was to launch the wondrous 
"white squadron " against the unknown. The crews of the great ships, 
the hierarchy of the officers, every man on the vessels — longed for the 
word war. For the idleness of an international harbor becomes irksome 
to the tar. He loves the sea — even in the inhuman tenements assigned 
him in modern war structures. Hong Kong is a tropic port, and the lassi- 
tude of the climate begins to tell after a short sojourn. It was noted by 
the curious, that Dewey had become deeply immersed in the charts of 
the China Seas; that like Napoleon, before the Italian campaign, he 
studied them by day, and meditated them by night. It was not however, 
until the brush of the painter was called in to transform the beautiful 
white surfaces of the fleet into a repellent nameless drab, that even the 
almond eyed navvy, knew that there was ominous work ahead, when this 
portentous transfiguration eclipsed the glory of the fleet. When Dewey 
on his own responsibility — anticipating the future, with the wise prevoy- 
ance of a prudent executive, bought out of hand, a British steamer from 
Cardiff, freighted with 3,000 tons of coal and a vessel of a Hong Kong 
house, laden with provisions ; the very powder boys knew that war was to 
be the wear very soon. Dewey's fitness for the post he had taken with 
reluctance, was never more consummately shown than in this commercial 
diplomacy. He assured breathing space for his enterprize and really 
augmented his force by two powerful auxiliaries — for the entire crews of 
these vessels to a man took service under the flag of the republic. Then 
came a breath of the far-off land— home. The McCulloch, a revenue cutter, 
employed by the Treasury Department on missions far removed from 
war, suddenly appeared among the fleet, shrilling salutes to the en- 
raptured tars. In war, the President may make use of these pacific craft 
to supplement the fleets, and when this vessel appeared, every bluejacket 
on board felt that he was sure of the deadly chance he had been eager 
for. It was this swift craft, that on the 26th of April dashed up to the 
flagship, to deliver this ft teful message : 



THE PRESIDENT'S ORDER. In] 

kw Washington, April 26th. 
"Dewey; Asiatic Squadron: Commence operations at once, particu 
larly against Spanish fleet, you must capture or destroy them. 

" McKlNLEY." 

It is not often that the President of the republic thus puts his signature 
to a command. Only once during the Civil War did Abraham Lincoln 
perform this function of his constitutional prerogative— when on Feb] uai v 
1862 he ordered all the armies of the United States to move. Bui no 
order ever given was so completely executed. The Spanish fleel was both 
destroyed and captured. Dewey's comment as reported by a witness al 
hand, portended — what was to follow: " Thank the Lord," he ejaculated, 
"at last, I've got the chance, and I'll wipe them off the Pacific Ocean." 
The squadron was lying in Chinese waters when this curt mandate 
reached its commander. For under the laws of nations, neither belligerent 
is permitted to make a stay of more than twenty-four hours in a neutral 
port. Dewey had taken refuge in the nearest haven to Hong Kong, Mirs 
Bay, and that Celestial harbor was thrown into a panic by the stertorous 
outburst from the ships, when at two o'clock on the afternoon of April 
26th the commodore's war pennant fluttered out from the mast head. 
This was the seaman's signal that the ships were no longer panoplied by 
the safeguards of law, that at any moment, they must be ready to de- 
fend themselves, — three miles from neutral shores. It meant war; and 
among the masses imprisoned in the iron hulks, there was the exultant 
delight of the human on being liberated. Every mile the ship sailed 
now, meant the growing peril of bomb, torpedo, and rain, but the sailors 
hailed these dangers, as others hail redemption. On the instant, as if 
impatient to taste to the full the liberty to slay and be slain, the fleet, 
nine vessels in all, made straight eastward, where the enemy was known 
to be. The commodore's flagship — -the Olympia, led the way, followed in 
order by the Baltimore, the Boston, the Raleigh, the Concord, 
McCulloch, the Petrel, and the two improvised transports Zafiro and 
Nanshan. 

This fleet was familiarly known in every sea port of the republic. It 
had been reproduced in illustrations for every reader of newspapers, to the 
uttermost hamlet from the Canadian frontier to the Rio Grande. Every 
man of eminence on each ship had been photographed and pictured, until 
they were as well known as family friends— in every household in the 
union. The journey, made in the tension and hopes of conflict, was not 
precipitate — for though on fighting bent, Dewey was full of the wise pre- 
caution of the strategist. The squadron was subdivided into scouts and 



102 



THE LAST DAY OF APRIL. 



guards. These vessels entered and scrutinized the sizes and purport of 
the harbors, likely to be tenanted by the enemy. Subig bay, a sheet of 
water, only second in importance to Manila itself — was entered with \ 
every precaution suggested by naval craft. It was half hoped that Ad- 
miral Montojo would be found there, as the harbor offered many ad- 
vantages for a battle. But Subig was empty of war vessels. Dewey 
indeed, drew augury there of the inconceivable unpreparedness of the 
enemy, for it was not known to the few ships encountered, that war was 
on. Under a yellow moon that seemed to the watching mariners a 
fantastically erratic balloon, the fleet quit Subig harbor the last day of 
April and skirted down the Philippine coast, in thrilling expectation. 
Every officer in control of each ship, knew to a dot on the chart, just 
what must be met; the only conjectural point was, the number and place- 




GENERAL VIEW OF MANILA. 

ment of the infernal machinery, prepared for the shins batteries. Would 
they begin abreast the harbor of Manila — Spain's most affluent spot in the 
splendid colony of the Orient? The harbor in peace, is reckoned one of 
the most inviting in that strange eastern archipelago. Shaped like a 
vast balloon — swelling to twenty or thirty miles in width at the upper, 
or northern part, the navigable waters decrease toward the neck or 
entrance where the island of Corregidor blocks the mouth, ideally placed 
by nature, to supplement the defensive works of art. The land, 



OLD MANILA. 1m. 

coterminous with the narrow neck, rises on each side into gigantic 
sades, commanding the approaches from the open sea. From 
sentry-like acclivities, the ground rises inland in mountainous ran$ 
far into the interior— of the island of Luzon. The ancient city of 

Manila, the emporium of the vast Philippine group, is built u, 

plain, between the upland ranges and the curving bays, twenty six miles 
upward and northeastward, from the narrow passes on each side of the 
island of Corregidor. The city was originally built upon inlets from Hi.' 
bay, the largest called the Pasig river ; which accommodates good sized 
craft. In effect — the arms of the bay make the city almost as detached 
in quarters as Venice. The original settlement was made on an oblong 
island south of the Pasig called "Old Manila— or Binondo." This mass 
of tenement is a perfect reproduction of the mediaeval Spanish walled 




CAPTURE OF CAVITE ARSENAL. 

city. It is compactly circumvallated from its neighboring suburbs, but 
modern artillery has made these walls mere monuments of the past, as 

they are no defences. Ten miles south by west, of Manila, the real 
defences of the place are located at a military and naval settlement — 
Cavite. The place is admirably chosen for its purpose. An arm of lanu 
6 



104 



MANILA'S DEFENCES. 



stretches outward and upward, like the claw of a lobster, completely 
sheltering a small sheet of water, capacious enough for twenty fleets. 
Since the attempt of the Germans to seize the Caroline group, Spain has 
made unstinted efforts to erect Cavite into an inexhaustible defence, both 
in provisions and appliances for any emergency. For four years, no 
stranger could get within observing distance of its carefully guarded walls 
or its imposing arsenal. It was the tale throughout all the eastern seas, 
that Manila could never be successfully attacked, so ample were the pre- 
cautions of the home government. And had the Spanish authorities 
supplemented nature— Cavite could only have been taken as Mobile or 
New Orleans were, by patient approach and deadly grapple— if even 




SPANISH ARTILLERY HEADQUARTERS, MANILA. 

these could have won over such enginery as modern science puts in such 
profusion at the disposal of the defensive. But the ominous points of 
contact for such an enterprise as Dewey's were the islands, Corregidor 
and Rulacabilla— square in the mouth of the narrow entrance to the 
harbor. Corregidor rises from the water six hundred and fifty feet sky- 
ward—the second island is less lofty by perhaps a hundred or more feet. 
These islands, provided as any of our coasts were armed, could have 
stopped a fleet a hundred fold more powerful than Dewey's. Indeed the 



DEWEY'S CAPTAINS. 105 

completeness of the prodigious armaments on these heights was told all 
over the Orient, when the first signs of war arose. 

Add to this the interminable chains of mines, torpedoes and other infer- 
nal agencies, and Dewey's hardihood can be comprehended. That mo- 
mentous Saturday night, as the squadron steamed toward the unknown, 
Dewey called the illustrious company commanding the several ships, to 
counsel. The group comprised, Captain Charles V. Gridley, of the flag- 
ship; of the Raleigh, Captain Joseph B. Coghlan ; Boston, Commander 
G. F. F. Wilde; Baltimore, Commander Nehemiah M. Dyer; Concord, 
Commander Asa Walker; Petrel, Captain E. P. Wood; McCulloch, Captain 
D. B. Hodgson. Dewey made known his plan of operations succinctly 
and confidentially. He proposed, he declared, to carry out the President's 
order. He directed the captains to slip into the bay past the islands under 
cover of the night, and then make at the Spanish squadron, wherever 
found. They were cautioned to extinguish all lights, and pay no heed to 
shots fired at them in passing. It was after midnight when the captains 
were rowed back to their vessels. The large moon suddenly slumped out 
of sight, and the sea was a wilderness of misty darkness. The audacious 
armada was soon at the crucial juncture of fort, fleet and mines. The 
commander took the place of peril, as his old tutor Farragut used to do. 
The Olympia steamed in spectral majesty under the sweep of the Cor- 
regidor guns, and the rest of the line followed. The lights on the island 
were plainly visible, when the men were called up to wash and get a stay- 
ing draught of coffee. The silence of the hour — neither night nor morn- 
ing — made the ship's noises so distinct, that they grew into volcanic up- 
roars in the excited minds of the crews. . It seemed as if the mighty 
throbbings of the engines must be audible even in Manila, thirty miles 
away. 

For hours, which seemed ages, the ships crept along until they came 
into the channel, moving in single file, and without a sound on board, ex- 
cept quiet orders and the throb of the engines and thwacks of the screws. 
In that still air, it seemed impossible to escape the vigilance of the forts, yet 
the Olympia, Baltimore, Raleigh, Petrel, Concord and Boston passed with- 
out even the challenge of a hail. The batteries of Corregidor and Caballo 
were mute, although the flagship passed well in range, with the Baltimore, 
following still closer inshore. It was incredible to Dewey and his com- 
manders, that the garrisons were at their posts and awake, for it seemed 
that a fleet stealing into an enemy's bay never made so much noise. The 
flotilla would all have been inside -squadron, supply ships, and convoy 
without the Spanish guards receiving the faintest intimation of its ap- 



106 PASSING CORREGIDOR. 

proach, if it had not been for a fireman on board the McCulloch. Possi- 
bly her commander had some idea that he was running behind and told 
the engineer to put on a little more steam. It was supposed that the men 
at the boilers got the idea that this was needed, and, throwing open the 
furnace doors, a few shovelfuls of soft coal were dumped in. Up from 
the smokestack of the cutter went a great shower of sparks. " If some 
one doesn't see that, the whole island must be asleep," an officer on the 
Olympia exclaimed. Some one evidently did see it, but even then the 
answer did not come instantly, for some minutes elapsed before, out from 
the west there came a bugle call, then a flash, and then the rolling boom 
of a great gun. Between the flash and the report there should have been 
the drop somewhere of the shot that went with them, but nobody in the 
fleet ever saw or heard anything to prove that Spain's first gun in the 
battle of Manila Bay, fired anything more than a blank cartridge. Twice 
move the battery fired, and somewhere astern of the McCulloch, there was 
a great splashing of water, but there was no ball felt anywhere near the 
line. Up to the third shot with its answering splash, no reply was. made 
by the invading fleet, but with the third shot, and sounding almost like 
its echo, there was a roar from the Concord. In what particular part of 
the fort that shot hit, no one knew. Then further back, the Boston took 
up the signal and sent in an eight-inch shell. Still further to the rear, the 
McCulloch having started the melee, continued as if for diversion. The 
batteries kept on flashing and booming a few minutes longer, and then 
became silent. There remained the torpedoes and mines with which the 
entrance was strewn, and Admiral Montojo's fleet rushing out to ram the 
groping vessels. But it is recorded by a participant, that the unanimous 
feeling was, that if mines were there, they were there, and that was all 
there was about it. Still in the deep darkness just before the dawn, the 
adventurous ships sailed implacably onward. Commodore Dewey was 
talking in an undertone to the rebel Philippino, who was acting as pilot. 
The figures of the men could be seen standing silently at their posts, up 
and down the ship. An officer analyzing the sensations of that crisis of 
the advance, declared " This invisible fleet ahead was a test out of which 
no man came without a sigh of relief. It is a hard thing to whisper an 
order, I know, so perhaps it is not to be wondered at that there should 
have been a break, or vibration in the men's voices, as they passed the 
necessary word from mouth to mouth. We were all keyed up, but it was 
not long before the fighting string in every man's heart was twanging and 
singing like that of a taut bow." 

Never in the history of desperate enterprises, was the flower safety 



THE SPANISH FLEET. 107 

more daringly plucked from the nettle danger. It was known thai 
Spanish fleet, in numbers, largely outnumbered the crafl at Dewi 
mand. A victorious captain-general had just subdued a prolong) 
break on the main islands, and it was generally supposed that the arsenals 
of the harbors were amply guarded, and the stores abundant. It hud 
gone forth too, that a deadly system of mining had made the harbor of 
Manila impossible to navigate, even were there no fleet to impede the 
entrance. It was true, as a matter of fact, that Admiral Montojo's vessels 
were more in number than the squadron of attack, but there the com- 
parison ends, for one of our battle ships far surpassed any two of 
Spanish. In guns, in all the appliances that make fighting machines ef- 
fective, our less numerous squadron was immeasurably superior. In an- 
other respect the disparity was more vitally apparent. The conduct of 
the Yankee crews, the inventive fertility of the rank and file, the quality, 
which is often spoken of as "moral stamina," made our fleet incon 
rably more than a match for an equal number, even on superior lighting 
machines. This, however, could only be a hope, not a reliance in Dewey's 
calculations when he set sail from Hong Kong. 

The last great colonial empire of the world possessions of Spain, were 
within three days" steaming of the cosmopolitan haven of Hong Kong, 
long held by the British. Pendulating between revolution and anarchy, 
the tribes of this vast insular empire had been draining the life-blood of 
the monarchy for years. Pro consuls had been sent out, as to Cuba, had 
waged ruthless war for a season, and returned to the metropolitan. • 
claiming peace. But barely had the word reached Madrid, when re . 
was reported; new bands were in motion and the Spanish masters in a 
panic. The distance from the seat of government, the immensity of the 
area of the islands, made it difficult to frame effective action from Mad- 
rid. Had the affairs of the colony been in the hands of strong govern- 
ments, capable administrators, the problem was great enough to tax the 
sagacity of the most enlightened and accomplished statesmen. 

But, as in Spain where a succession of adventurers succeeded in cabinet 
after cabinet, so in the Philippines, adventurer after adventurer took up 
the heavy burden of administration, and failed. The causes of these fail- 
ures are precisely those that brought ruin upon Spain herself. Indole: 
ignorance, rapacity, the cynical venality deploied by every thoughtful 
Spaniard. Captain-general after captain-general followed each other 
at stated intervals, each returning to Spain enriched by his pro-consui; 
But even the fatuous misrule of the Spaniards would not have brought 
about rebellion, if outside nationalities had not set the discontented into 



108 BATTLE DISCOVERS FACULTIES. 

active revolt. There are no natives capable of aspiring to independence, 
none that have the remotest conception of self-rule, or rule of any kind, 
save the bludgeon or the bow string. But the Japanese, the Chinese and 
even some of the more restless of the Western states of Christendom, 
kept the natives in activity, with the purpose of wearing Spain out and 
seizing the coveted territories. 

Bismarck began the policy some years ago, by a claim on that group of 
the Philippines known as the Caroline islands. He naively professed 
that he had no idea they formed part of the possessions of Spain ; that 
they were lying unclaimed by any competent authority, and that Germany 
needed them ! Spain flew into a passion. Europe became interested. 
Britain saw that her predominance in the Orient would be put in jeopard. 
Spain was therefore encouraged to arm, to resist, and Britain would stand 
by. Bismarck had no motion of going as far as a general war. He saw 
that if he persisted in seizing the islands, that he would have to fight the 
British. He was given a chance to withdraw without letting it be seen 
that he was driven out; the matter was submitted to the arbitration of 
the Pope, and as prearranged, the pontiff reaffirmed Spain's title. 

Dewey knew that his ships were perfect, in so far as they represented 
what has come to be known as a " class " of fighting machines. They 
had never been tried in action ; it was problematical whether the most 
accomplished of the trained craftsmen could really guide and manipulate 
the million niceties of invention that make the handling of a battle ship, 
the work of a scientific adept. 

As war reveals a people to itself, battle discovers to men, faculties they 
are hardly conscious of. To manceuver a stately battle ship, under the 
rubric of the rules laid down in the school of the mariner, is far from do- 
ing the same work in the stress of conflict. For not the least of the de- 
mand upon the sailor or soldier, is the denial of curiosity ! He may not 
stop to watch the thrilling phantasmagoria of strife ; he may not even 
follow the meteoric parabola of the ball he speeds to do deathly work. 
The shouts and cries of command or pain, the hoarse cheers in the pan- 
demonium about him, the echoing voice of stertorous defiance in the 
murky deeps beyond — these he may not linger to take count of. He 
must push hand, limb, body, sight, every faculty that differentiates the 
man from the machine, how much soever of a prodigy it may be in com- 
plicated workmanship. He is lost in the savage exultation of death ; but 
he has none of the gluttonous delight of his ancestor, the redman, whose 
blow preceded the triumph of the scalp — the ecstasy of his enemy's dy- 
ing groan or servile surrender. 



DEWEY'S COOLNESS. 



100 



Dewey's fleet had just enough ammunition to fight one battle, if the 
resistance were not prolonged. This however, was not known to the sail- 
ors, though the veterans must have divined it. Hence the daring of the 
attack reaches the stage of heroism — known as the forlorn hope — for had 
the Spanish fleet, resisted long enough, had Admiral Montojo been able 




WORKING A FIVE-INCH RAPID FIRE GUN. 

to shelter his vessels as he could have done, or as Dewey would have 
done, had the emergency required it; our fleet would have found itself in 
the enemy's harbor, four thousand miles from coal and ammunition! 

Dewey had taken all the precautions his daring implied. He had in- 
formed himself of the enemy's resources ; he knew to a gun the armament 
that would resist him. He had such charts and outlines as it was possi- 
ble for agents of our government to procure. But he couldn't foreknow 
the absolute poverty of the arsenal ; the treasonable lack of precautions in 
the vital defences of the harbor of Manila. It is a testimony to his 
heroism that he went to his work anticipating all the dangers that skill, 
prudence, scientific knowledge and ample warning foreboded. He ex- 
pected to pass as did Farragut, his ancient commander at Mobile, miles of 



110 THE OPENING GUN. 

water strewn with torpedoes, nets to impede his vessels, guns banked on 
the island of Corregidor, commanding the entrance to the bay, as ef- 
fectually as Staten Island guards the approaches of New York. For 
Manila, as the chief city and naval entrepot of Spain's Oriental Empire, 
was naturally supposed to be ready at all times for just such an onset as 
Dewey meditated. 

The recent war between China and Japan had illustrated the defects 
of great ships alone, as protections to harbors. Admonished by China's 
collapse, it was only natural to suppose that Manila would present an ag- 
gressive defence redoubtable to the strongest squadron that Britain her- 
self could bring to bear. All this Dewey counted upon, when after the 
fateful sail across the Yellow Sea, his squadron came in sight of the 
island of Corregidor. He had timed his approach to the crucial point, at 
an hour when he would have the cover of darkness. But in the hands of 
competent men, darkness would have been no shield. Invention has 
placed it in the power of defenders of strong places, on the coast, to throw 
wide beams of light across the pathway of approaching ships, to surprise 
the most cautious night advance. Dewey's fleet had almost wholly passed 
the island, when a bed of soft coal in one of the furnaces of the fleet sent 
up a lurid flame. A shot from one of the forts followed, but as the ships 
had been moving as they neared land, with all lights out and every pre- 
caution against the faintest twinkle of a lantern, the startled enemy had 
nothing in sight to fire at. 

With characteristic confidence, which under other circumstances might 
have seemed reckless bravado, the fleet returned a salvo. Now this 
passage at arms accentuates the incredible lack of preparation that the 
whole combat discovered. This opening gun was fired seventeen miles 
from Manila, but there was no telegraphic line communicating with the 
admiral in command ! The destinies of the campaign might have been de- 
cided by a timely telegram to the commander. At the rate the fleet 
sailed four miles an hour to reach Manila, after this first warning shot, 
the Spanish fleet could have been made ready. But no word was carried 
to the unconscious Admiral Montojo. Scores of Krupp guns of the 
heaviest calibre lined the embattled cliffs on each side of Corregidor ; in 
the hands of determined men, these guns could have riddled the stoutest 
armor and made the fleet an easy conquest; for even the inferior ships of 
the Spaniards, with mines properly placed along the channel, would have 
made the entrance to the bay, a holocaust. Believing that these were 
in his path, believing that the Krupp guns would do their office, Dewey, 
without an instant's hesitation, pushed on to their encounter ! 



THE MIDNIGHT ORDEAL. Ill 

This ordeal began at midnight. As the dawn broke with a flash, in the 
way day breaks in these tropic lands, the lleet was revealed in the 
lovely harbor of Manila, each vessel stripped for action, and the long files 
of stalwart men asleep beside their guns, expecting an onset every 
minute, from midnight on, neither officers nor men ventured to quit the 
decks. The sunlight revealed an entrancing spectacle to the eager mar- 
iners. In curving circles of dewy green, the vernal parterres of the main- 
land arose like blooming amphitheatres; in the dazzling foliage nestled 
the gay pavilions of Manila's suburbs; in the centre of the city itself, 
uprose in tranquil majesty, spires and domes — a vision of repose. In the 
clear air, the soft jangle of the early church bells came soothingly across 
the radiant waters. But beyond the curving line of peace, the grim por- 
tents of war engrossed the eager gaze of the men. Far other than the 
music of the bells came from that quarter. The Spanish ships, some 
visible, others concealed behind the tortuosities of Cavite, were making 
ready to challenge the Yankee right of way. 

In keeping with the shiftless state of the enemy's fleets, defences and 
what not, our sailors could see the hurry and confusion that paralyzed the 
Spanish crews. Manila had been apprized that war was declared ; the com- 
mander of the fleet was in cable communication with Hong Kong, and 
must have known the exact status of his adversary. He had Spanish 
compatriots in Hong Kong who could have served him as our consul in 
Manila had served Dewey. But these elementary preparations and pre- 
cautions never seem to have entered into Captain-general Augusti's or 
Admiral Montojo's plan of campaign. The approach of the Yankees was 
a bewildering surprise. The wrecked admiral in accounting for his an- 
nihilation, naively confessed that he did not look for the hostile fleet 
under a week at the earliest, yet it was not by swift sailing our fleet was 
so promptly on the scene; for the Federal commander systematically 
held the squadron at half speed. From the moment the island of Cor- 
regidor was sighted, the rate was diminished to four miles an hour, to 
guard against torpedo and mining enterprises. Significantly too, the 
sailors were impressed superstitiously, by the fate of the Maine, for the 
name of that vessel was heard in every corner where tars were gathered 
in the solemn conclaves that precede battle. None feared open fight — 
shot or shell — but to be ignobly smothered like rats in a tub has the hor- 
ror for sailors, that the prison bars of Andersonville came to have for the 
soldiers during the Civil War. But when the glorious tropic dawn irradi- 
ated the surface of the sea, and the tars caught a glimpse of the Spanish 
squadron, their trained eyes detected that while the men aboard might be 



112 



STRIPPED FOR ACTION. 



models of valor, the care of the ships was derisive. For it was noted that 
there was no steam issuing from the pipes, no smoke to indicate fires. 
The fleet indeed lay supine in the grasp of the determined captain, who 
braving all, was to win all. Not so on the Yankee ships. The tropic 
heat had warned the tars that garments would be a peril. When the 
guns were ready, the men stood at them stripped to the belt, and remained 
in this unconventional costume until the ships were "tidied" up for in- 








SPANISH VESSELS BLOCKADED AT MANILA. 

spection after the combat was ended. It is eminently worth recording, 
that the time of a number of the plain sailors had expired just as Dewey 
received the word from Washington to seek, engage, and destroy the 
Spanish fleet. In every instance, the men asked to join in -the battle and 
though no longer amenable to the rules of war, fought the fight and did 
duty like their brethren. 

Such exhibitions are worth volumes as indicating the spirit of the rank 
and file, the affectionate consideration in which the trained hierarchies of 
the fleet are held. For there was never a time when a British seaman 
was known to remain an hour in service, after the term of his legal release 
struck. The picture is fitly finished by the appearance of one of these 
modest heroes at the White House, on the return from the field of his 
glory, to narrate to the chief magistrate the incidents of the battle as a 
gunner's eye saw it. It would not be a complete history of the epoch, 



THE SPANISH LINE. 113 

that omitted this characteristic detail. Scores of incidents like these en- 
dear Lincoln to the plain people lie counted on so confidently to carry 
the country through the ordeal of war. 

From the compact mass of the Spanish line, came the opening volley, 
our fleet moving in prescribed regularity, as if in evolution. Dewey in his 
place of peril, on the bridge of the flagship Olympia, stood gravely calcu- 
lating the gunmanship of his enemy. To the strained attention of the 
men, immobile at the guns, it seemed as if the commander had forgotten 
the mission of his fleet. Nearer the vessels ranged in due order to the 
enemy's foreline, now sending missiles over the Yankee decks, hurtling 
through every projection of the ships. The Spanish flagship, the Reina 
Christina (Queen Christina) was 4,000 yards away, when she sent her 
first salute to the impassible commander. In an instant the flagship be- 
came the target of the Spanish line ; the air was a pandemonium of crack- 
ing shells and whizzing shot. Still Dewey stood silent ; finally, having 
gauged the accuracy of the enemy's fire, he turned to the waiting subor- 
dinate with the word: 

" When you are ready you may fire, Gridley ! " 

The massive bulk of the Olympia turned her side to the line of fire and 
the roar from her enormous guns sounded almost simultaneously with the 
commodore's tranquilly uttered signal. Each ship in its turn took up the 
refrain. Then was seen the incommunicable something meant by dis- 
cipline, the effects of enlightened training, the spirit of confidence that 
enables a guiding mind to achieve the utmost results hoped for, planned 
for, in the fallow years of peace. The men in every division of the innu- 
merable parts seamen play, laid hold of their work as though its execution 
under shot and shell were the oldest of old stories. The Spanish mis- 
siles came in hurtling clouds about each ship; and it must be borne in 
mind that not the least of the benumbing terrors of battle on sea or land, 
is the indescribable clamor of the bursting bombs ; the whizzing shot, 
whether its speed be checked by a human body or the inert mass of the 
ship's metal. Mingled with the tornado of shot and shell directed from 
the Spanish ships, four well mounted earthworks added a continuous 
deluge upon Dewey's squadron. 

Though the din and carnage seemed the blind fury of uncontrollable 
forces, that is, events following each other by chance or coincidence, 
studied design marked every volley, every movement of each ship had a 
double consigne — to act with such relation to natural obstacles as to gain the 
greatest efficiency for her broadside and least expose vulnerable parts: to 
keep in movement and in such guise as to give the enemy the least chance 



114 COOL HEAD AND STRONG ARM. 

to get sight on vulnerable parts. To gradually diminish the distance as 
the work of destruction visibly shattered the effective force of the enemy. 
This plan of operations kept our fleet in constant movement, easing the 
strain on each battery in turn, and enabling every part of the ship's of- 
fensive equipment to come into play by graduated instalments, so to 
speak. Above all, it gave the masses of men, who could not see what was 
going on, the unspeakable solace of feeling that all was going well, for 
the)- were carrying out precisely the orders received in squadron drill ; 
that was reassurance that no destructive missiles had crippled the vessel ; 
nothing out of the normal had come to pass. And as after all the effect- 
iveness of the vessel depends utterly upon the cool head and the strong 
arm imprisoned among the mechanical appliances, this of itself reveals 
the scope of Dewey's masterful system. Simple as the manceuvering 
seems, in fact inevitable, it was clearly not counted on by the Spanish 
Admiral — Montojo, an accomplished mariner, as the tribute of Dewey at- 
tests. Montojo had so aligned his ships, as to compel a standing fight, 
ship to ship, and under such conditions he would have added immeasura- 
bly to his chances for the guns of Cavite would have been as deadly as 
the volleys from his broadsides. To have planted his line abreast the 
Spanish line, would have lessened the offensive force of Dewey's squadron 
by nearly half, for it would have taken time to turn each ship to bring 
each broadside into play. A realistic observer, whose official functions 
held him near the commodore during the evolutions, contributes the 
charming detail, that as the fleet having safely anchored the supply ships 
out of range, circled majestically back — eastward toward the wharves of 
Manila, Dewey, weighted with a responsibility that we who read and 
wonder, lose sight of in the result, commented on the lovely lines of 
landscape, likening the peaceful picture of earth, sea and sky with one of 
his own Vermont home scenes. It was remarked of another commander, 
Wilde of the Boston, that in the deadliest grapple of the combat, when 
iron fell like hail, and no one knew the instant the torpedoes would sound 
the ships' doom, he held a broad palm leaf fan and worked it with vigor. 
Naturally — the commander of fleet or vessel, were objects of interest to 
their juniors and the testimony on each ship shows that the country can 
count on as many Deweys as it has educated sailors. Once, for a mo- 
ment, the breath of all who had time to glance overboard ceased, the 
rlesh crawled as the Baltimore rushed thunderingly toward the jaws of 
flame, the water uprose in a pyramid of glittering jets — the surface of 
the water seemed to start upward — a sensation as of the first disturbance 
of an earthquake was imagined, not felt. Every man on ship seeing this 



THE DIN OF BROADSIDES. 115 

recognized that the unknown had come. The torpedoes were taking a 
hand. But there was no outward sign of the inward horror. They were 
there to die, but before dying they were there to destroy the destroyers. 
The ships sailed on — implacably as the fate that had summoned them. 
That, however, was the last evidence of the mining that was to undo the 
invader, supposing him to pass the outer barricades. 

Unlike most battles at sea there were witnesses at hand to mark every 
stage, every gun shot, so-to-speak, that each side fired. Dewey himself 
seemed intent on solving the scientific results; the aggressive and passive 
potentialities of his own and the enemy's armaments. There was none of 
the clamorous frenzy of shouting men and maniac officers, we read of in 
the old days of wooden ships, where officers with cutlasses stood over the 
gunners shrieking forth 'alternate commands and objurgations. Indeed 
the fighting man moved with the same orderly determination, exacted at 
drill. To get the full effect of the guns and the best results from the 
men, each ship turned an alternate side in firing. Thus the groups at the 
guns had an interval of ten minutes or more to rest, while their mates on 
the other side were firing. In spite of the "smokeless" powder, dense 
clouds of black smoke rose rapidly, cutting off the clear outlines of the 
embattled enemy. 

The din of broadsides had gone on perhaps fifteen minutes, when a 
movement of significance was discerned among the Spanish ships. Into 
the shot torn sea, directly in the line of the Olympia, came the Spanish 
flagship, the majestic leader of* the enemy's fleet. Admiral Montojo, 
recognizing the Olympia as the rival flag bearer, made intrepidly toward 
her. Dewey saw the manoeuvre and leaning over the rail of the bridge, 
directed an officer to bid the gunners turn every muzzle upon the oncom- 
ing assailant. The Spanish admiral could be seen on the bridge, direct- 
ing the battle, with his two sons as aids beside him. At each turn in the 
circuit made by the fleet, the Reina Christina made head toward the 
Olympia ; every man in the fleet became conscious of the duel of the flag- 
ships ; every gun was pointed with more deliberate aim toward the 
Spanish leader, which advanced and retired with the coming and going 
of the flag ship. Dewey had noted the tactics and when the Christina 
turned to take temporary breathing space behind the Cavite spur, an 
eight inch shell was sent square into the retreating ship's stern. 

The immense missile struck squarely under the protecting deck plates, 
tore through the length of the vessel, and when nearly at the other end 
of the hulk, exploded the powder magazine. The havoc was beyond 
words, destructive. One hundred and thirty men were killed or wounded ; 



116 



THE DUEL OF THE FLAGSHIPS. 



the noble ship was almost annihilated as a fighting machine. The cap- 
tain was instantly killed and seventy-five per cent, of the crew disabled, 
by this single shot ! 

Of this episode an eye witness gives this remarkable picture : "The 
commodore passed the word to concentrate all possible fire on the Reina 




ADMIRAL PATRICIO MONTOJO Y PARASON. 

Christina, and she actually shivered under the battering of onr storm of 
shot and shell. Rents appeared near her water line where the eight inch 
shells had torn their way. One shot struck the port bridge on which 
Admiral Montojo stood, upon which like the brave man he was, the ad- 



TONS OF STEEL. 117 

miral coolly stepped to the other end. But no bravery could stand the 
driving, crushing, rending of the tons of steel which we poured into the 
Christina, and there was quite a little cheer from our forward men as the 
Spanish flagship turned and made for the shore. But appreciation of 
courage on the part of the enemy, did not prevent our gunners from also 
appreciating the excellent opportunity which the retreating flagship gave 
us for a raking shot. As she got into her swing with the stern dead to- 
ward us, one of Captain Gridley's guns thundered, and an eight-inch 
shell struck the enemy as squarely in the centre as though she had been 
painted off in target squares. It was a bull's eye so marvelous in its ex- 
actness and so terrible in its effects that I cannot help speaking of it a 
little more at length. We saw from where we stood that it shattered the 
Christina's steering gear, and, unless our eyes very much deceived us, we 
saw, too, that the Spaniard was actually driven forward with a shivering 
motion like one prize fighter sent in catapult fashion staggering into the 
ropes from the fist blow of another prize fighter. From what we learned 
then, and from what we learned afterward, I am convinced that no man 
in the squadron had up to that time an idea of the awfully destructive 
possibilities of the eight incher. The projectile weighed two hundred 
and fifty pounds, and one hundred and fifty pounds of powder were used 
to expel it. The gun itself was about twenty eight feet long. When it 
left Gridley's gun the shell traveled at the rate of two thousand feet a 
second. The distance between the Olympia and the Reina Christina was 
about two thousand five hundred yards, and the time between the shot's 
leaving the muzzle of our gun, and its impact on the stern of the Spanish 
ship was the scarcely appreciable one of five seconds. When it left our 
gun it had what is technically known as an energy of eight thousand and 
eleven hundred foot-tons ; that is, it would have gone through twenty-one 
and a half inches of Harveyized steel. But the Reina Christina was an 
unarmored vessel and all that enormous penetrative energy was expended 
on the Spanish cruiser's protected sides, and such internal resistance as 
partitions, bulkheads, engines, etc. It was through all these obstructions 
that the great shell tore its way until it reached the aft boiler. There it 
exploded, and as it did so, ripped up the deck of the cruiser and scattered 
its hail of steel in all directions. We could see the smoke pouring out 
of the vessel, the gush of escaping steam and the shower of splinters and 
mangled bodies." Dewey, of course, did not know the completeness 
of the work done by this one fateful ball. Admiral Montojo contributes 
the sequel: "Although we recognized the lmpelessness of fighting the 
American ships, we were busy returning their fire. The Reina Christina 



118 



EIGHT-INCH GUNS. 




was 



WORKING THE "OLYMPIAV EIGHT-INCH GUNS. 

hit repeatedly. Shortly after 6:30 o'clock I observed fire forward. 



EFFECT OF ONE SHOT. 119 

Our steering gear was damaged, rendering the vessel unmanageable, and 
we were being subjected to a terrible hail of shell and shot. The engines 
were struck; we estimated that we had seventy hits about our bull and 
superstructure. The boilers were not hit, but the pipe to the condenser 




ADMIRAL MONTO.TO LEAVING HIS FLAGSHIP. 

was destroyed. A few moments later I observed the after part on fire. 
A shell from the Americans had penetrated and burst with deadly effect, 
hilling many of our men. The flag lieutenant said to me : 'The ship is 
in flames. It is impossible to stay on the Christina any longer.' He signalled 
to the gunboat Isle de Cuba, and I and my staff were transferred, and my 
7 



120 BREAKFAST TIME. 

flag hoisted on her. Before leaving the Christina, my flag was hauled 
down. My flagship was now one mass of flames. I ordered away all the 
boats I could to save the crew." 

Dewey at this point, not aware of the extremity of the enemy, made 
signal to cease firing. A blinding, impenetrable smoke hid everything 
above and about the vessels. It was impossible to distinguish visual 
signals. The group near Dewey's eyrie heard this dialogue. 

" What time is it, Reese? " in the commodore's ordinary Yankee drawl. 
" Seven forty-five, sir," Reese spoke imperturbably as if the ships were in 
Boston harbor. 

" Breakfast time," the commodore rejoined, smiling — " run up the sig- 
nal to cease firing, and follow me." It impresses the irony of events, 
that the Spaniards at sight of the withdrawing fleets, sent up delirious 
cheers. It was at this juncture that the unfortunate Montojo's superior, 
like the Austrian at Marengo, sent the dispatch which intoxicated Madrid, 
that the Yankee fleet had drawn off disabled. To accentuate their joy, 
which they believed a triumph, the lands forts deluged the retiring squad- 
ron with Krupp missiles. " No reply, I suppose, sir," asked the Olympia's 
executive officer. " Oh, no," Dewey answered. " Let them amuse them- 
selves. We shall have plenty of chance to burn powder after breakfast. 
We haven't really begun fighting yet." 

The combat had been waged since a few minutes after five. But the men 
had been in a tension equal to a battle of twenty hours. Indeed the 
tension had begun so soon as the dim surfaces of the Philippines could 
be distinguished, the night before. To stop in the heat and fury of a 
combat to eat, was a new thing in sea warfare, and the fancy of the ma- 
rines all over the world was immensely amused at the evidence of Yankee 
imperturbability. Dewey, however, had more weighty reasons than feed- 
ing his outworn crews, vital as that need was. It behooved him to hus- 
band his ammunition. He had tested the enemy's capacity for aggression 
and if the conflict were to be prolonged, he must take note of the resour- 
ces at Montojo's command. While the men were breakfasting, the Span- 
iards had an opportunity to take an initiative. If they were capable of 
an onset, the Yankee fleet was ready, but the silence in the deeps behind 
Cavite and the conduct of the flagship, convinced Dewey that he had so 
crippled the armada and forts that it would be running no risk to freely 
use his ammunition in destroying the fleet, or forcing a surrender. 

When the action ceased and the various fleet captains were signalled 
to report their losses and damage, on Dewey's flagship, the body that 
surrounded the commander regarded each other with stupefaction' 



THE LAST SIGNAL. 121 

They had been firing and receiving fire for nearly three hours, and had 
the miraculous tale to tell, that not a man had l>een injured, not a splinter 
had been knocked from an iron frame! Dewey could scarcely believe 
his ears. When the officers at the end of thirty minutes returned with 
the astounding story to the ships, there was an outburst of cheers that 
puzzled the Spaniards, for they were in the despair of men who recognize 
that no valor can bring victory. 

Admiral Montojo gives the picture in eloquent brevity:- "Only a few 
men were drowned, the majority being picked up by the boats. Before 
jumping overboard, Captain Cadarso's son, a lieutenant on board the 
Christina, saw his father alive on deck, but others state that as the cap- 
tain was about to leave, a shell burst overhead and killed him. We esti- 
mated that fifty-two men were killed on board the Christina, and about 
150 wounded. In the Castilla about fifteen men were killed, but there 
were many wounded both on the Castilla and the Don Juan, on which 
thirteen men were killed. Altogether 400 men were killed and wounded 
in our ships. As soon as I translated myself from the Reina Christina to 
the Isle de Cuba, all the shots were directed upon the Cuba, following my 
flag. We sought shelter behind the pier at Cavite, and recognizing tha 
futility of fighting more, I prepared to disembark, and gave orders foi 
the evacuation of the remainder of our ships. The Castilla had been on 
fire from end to end for some time, and was of course already abandoned 
The Ulloa was also burning. 

" My last signal to the captains of all vessels was: ' Scuttle and aban 
don your ships.' This was about 7:30. The Reina Christina, Castilla 
Don Juan d' Austria, Velasco and Ulloa, were all destroyed in this en 
gagement. To prevent the guns being of use to the Americans, the cap 
tains on abandoning them brought away portions of their mechanism 
and also succeeding in saving all the ships' papers and treasure." 

Unconscious of the havoc his ships had wrought, that is, the finality ol 
the work done, Dewey ordered the renewal of the action at 10:45. The 
fleet as fresh and staunch as when the opening gun boomed over the 
waters, headed serenely for the slaughter pen. As the concourse steamed 
over the waters, the music of the church bells could be heard distinctly 
from Manila, as though war were unknown in the port ! The forts, 
almost alone maintained the second combat. They were w r ell armed, and 
had the guns been well served, we should have paid a costly price for the 
final conquest. But the same miraculous fortune attended to the end. 
With his ships riddled into useless hulks, their crews decimated, the forts 
silenced, Admiral Montojo was forced at the end of two hours to end a 



122 EVERYTHING READY? 

resistance whose heroism redeemed the end. For it adds to the splendor 
of Dewey's triumph, that he overcame a resistance as desperate as sea 
annals record. Had Spain done by her sailors one-half that her sailors 
did for her, the contest at Manila would have left a different tale to tell. 
History narrates down to the least syllable, the words of great seamen 
in combats that bear feeble comparision with Dewey's work at Man- 
ila. But there is no where in naval annals points more piquant, than 
one observant officer's report from Dewey's flagship. The resumption 
of the fight after the leisurely breakfast would have been called epic, had 
it been recorded of Nelson. "Everything ready, Lieutenant? " Dewey 
asked in his measured way. " I believe so, sir," Lamberton made answer. 
" Very well, call to quarters and get under way." To his old friend 
and comrade, Captain Dyer of the Baltimore, Dewey conceded the dan- 
gers and glories of leading in the second assault. The programme had 
been settled minutely. The Spanish fleet was to be finished, and then 
the forts silenced. Plainly, Dewey now knew what he could do with his 
ships, and knew the men he could count on, as well as what he might 
look for from the Spaniards. The triumph of Montojo's seamen had been 
shortlived. Even with the Yankees gone as they supposed to bind up 
their wounds, the Spanish fleet was unable to right a gun or adjust a 
splinter. The Baltimore's captain, emulous of the conduct of the flag- 
ship, went to his task intrepidly, and yet with a certain circumspection. 
As the ship ran within range she caught all the enemy's fire that was 
left. It seemed that in their desperation the Spaniards fired better at 
this time than they had in the earlier combat, for one of their shells ex- 
ploded on the Baltimore's deck, wounding five men by scattering splin- 
ters. No reply went from the Baltimore. A few minutes passed and 
another shell burst on the ship's deck ; three more men were hit. Still 
the Yankee did not reply. Shells plunged about the ship until she seemed 
plowing through a bed of dynamite. When she reached about three-thou- 
sand-yard range, she swung about and poured a broadside into the Reina 
Christina. Every shot must have told, for the former flagship seemed 
literally to crumble at the discharge. The smoke clouds hid everything 
for a minute or two, but when they lifted, the Christina could be seen 
bursting into fragments, the waters about her in a tempest of splinters. 
Under that ferocious discharge of the Baltimore's guns, Captain Cadarso 
and many of his men were killed. When the rain of her fragments had 
ceased, the Christina settled and sank, the remainder of her crew jumping 
overboard and swimming for the nearest consort. The Baltimore then 
turned her attention to the San Juan d' Austria, the Olympia and 



WRECK OF THE AUSTRIA. 123 

Raleigh steaming up to aid in the destruction. The three cruisers poured 
a continuous stream into the Spaniard, which rocked under the concus- 
sion. A shell from the Raleigh struck the Spaniard's magazine and ex- 
ploded it. The doomed ship's decks went up like the crust of a volcano ; 
so violent was the shock that the vessel next her, El Correo, careened in 
almost complete wreck. The Austria was a wreck, and the El Correo 
was so damaged, that the Petrel ran up close to the Spanish gun boat and 
finished her by a few volleys. The cruisers Velasco and Castilla still re- 
mained apparently able to fight. The Boston devoted herself to ending 
the Velasco's activities. A broadside was landed from the cruiser with 
such startling precision that the Spanish ship actually swung over side- 
wise, revealing jagged rents in her starboard side that told the story. 
She went down smoking, with barely time enough for her crew to throw 
over their boats and make for the shore. The Castilla had been set on 
fire in the first onslaught, and when the Concord and Baltimore poured 
the tremendous weight of shells into her, she was scuttled in order to 
prevent the magazine from exploding. "Every ship in the Spanish fleet," 
says an e}^e witness, " with one exception fought valiantly, but to the Don 
Antonio d' Ulloa and her commander Robion, should be given the palm 
for that form of desperate courage and spirit which leads a man to die 
fighting. The flagship and the Boston were the executioners. Under their 
shells the Ulloa was soon burning in half a dozen places; but her fighting 
crew gave no signs of surrender. Shot after shot struck the Spaniard's 
hull until it was riddled like a sieve. Shell after shell struck her upper 
decks, until under the awful fire all of her upper guns were useless ; but 
there were no signs of surrender. The main deck crew escaped, but the 
captain and his officers clung to the wreck. On the lower deck her gun 
crews stuck to their posts like the heroes they were. As shot after shot 
struck the shivering hulk, still her lower guns answered back as best 
they might; it seemed as though it was impossible to kill her. At last 
we noticed her in the throes, that sickening unmistakable lurch of a sink- 
ing ship. Her commander noticed it too, still there was no surrender, 
instead, he nailed the Spanish ensign to what was left of the mast and 
the Don Antonio d' Ulloa went down, not only with her colors flying, 
but also with her lower guns still roaring defiance. Just as the picture 
of the Ulloa's end is luridly bright, so that of another ship is gloomily dark. 
For the sake of her gallant mates, this ship shall be nameless. She had 
hauled down her colors about the same time that the Ulloa had refused 
to do so, and had gone down with them all aflutter. A boat's crew from 
the McCulloch was signaled to go and take possession of this ship, when 



124 WE SURRENDER. 

to our amazement she opened fire on the approaching gig. The ensign 
stood up in the stern in open-mouthed wonder at such a piece of treachery, 
hut kept liis boat along her course. The incident had not passed unob- 
served by the squadron, however, and the Spaniard's fate was a swift one. 
There was no need for the commodore to fly a signal, for it was as with 
a common impulse that every one of our vessels stopped firing at the 
enemy in general, and directed every available shot at that Spaniard in 
particular. The bay leaped up and foamed around the traitorous vessel 
as though it had been struck by the whip end of a Texas tornado, and 
when the waters were at rest again the Spaniard had vanished as com- 
pletely as though that tornado had carried her bodily into a neighboring 
state." At 12:30, from the highest fortified point of Cavite, the Olym- 
piad flag officer read the message, " We surrender." 

Then the work of destruction was turned to the rescue and re- 
cuperation of the vanquished. On Dewey's fleet the sailors moved as if 
in a dream ! It was at first difficult to make the grimy gunners believe 
that the battle was ended; that five hours' fighting had conquered the 
last imperial possession of the Spanish monarchy. But the commanders 
had no leisure to reflect on the magnitude of the work wrought in so 
brief a space. Problems of poignant embarrassment, came with the re- 
sponsibilities of victory. Though the right arm of Spanish power had 
been crushed, a vigorous left arm remained to parry the final thrust. 
The army of Spain remained intact in the fortifications of Manila, a few 
miles away! Naturally the possession of Manila was desirable; until 
the flag of the republic floated over its citadel, the conquest could not be 
called complete; yet without an army to occupy the strong places, there 
was peril in taking possession. Dewey couldn't man his ships and garri- 
son the town. The Spanish military commander couldn't resist a bom- 
bardment, but he could and did refuse to withdraw, unless driven out by 
the guns of the fleet. It was not however the mission of Dewey to 
slaughter the innocent, to wantonly destroy private property. Beside 
this, Manila is inhabited by colonies of many nationalities. These had to 
be considered in the emergency of an attack. Dewey wisely deferred a 
decision until he could hear from Washington. 

Absorbing as the narrative of the battle to the reader, the telling of it 
to each other on board ship, gives the officers and men a renewal of its 
glories for many a day, and indeed will continue to thrill every one under 
the flag, so long as war stories are related by men. It is the evidence of 
the officers, that among the men the general impression had prevailed 
that they were going to have a battle in the dark, with all its dangers of 



JOY OF THE CREWS. 125 

firing at friend or foe. When the real spectacular programme broke on 
them, the relief of the men was eloquent of what followed. Few of the 
crews had ever been under fire, but when once the battle did begin, they, 
despite the fever of fight acted with the precision of veterans. Once in 
it, they did not want to stop. When the breakfast order was known 
below the decks or in untoward places, voices could be heard remonstrat- 
ingly. " Oh, let's finish it up," but when the news spread that the com- 
modore was only taking wind between the rounds, it was no longer pos- 
sible to restrain them, nor for a moment or two was there any attempt to 
exact the strict enforcement of discipline. All over the decks the tars 
could be seen slapping each other on the back, shaking hands, and doing 
a few steps of horn pipe, and this, not because there was not a man missing 
from any mess, but because they were going to fight again. There was 
need, however, for the interlude. The smoke of battle had grown so 
thick that signals could not be seen. Dewey had started out to destroy 
the Spanish fleet and he had his own way of doing it. It was turning 
out to be an easier task than he had anticipated. He concluded that 
there was no occasion to hurry, that as the men had been fighting on a 
single cup of coffee all round, and a hot morning, it was just as well to 
haul off for a little while for second breath. 

Says a participant: "It had been bad enough for us ; breathing the 
powder smoke ; clinging to the railings as the ship shivered and shook 
after each discharge ; exposed, of course, to the enemy's fire and scamp- 
ering back and forward as the occasion required, but we were in the open 
and could in a degree see what was going on. So, too, could the men 
behind the shield guns, because, notwithstanding precautionary orders, 
as the fight proceeded, the jackies persisted in running out to watch the 
effect of their shots and to see generally how things were getting along. 
But what must it have been for the men in the turrets ! Take for in- 
stance the forward turret of the Olympia on that broiling hot Sunday 
morning in the tropics. In the turret were the two eight inch guns and 
twelve Yankee gunners, guns and men occupying about every available 
inch of space. Above them and between the guns rose the platform of 
the conning tower where Captain Gridley and his assistant perched. The 
roar of the guns with their ear splitting concussions, and the occasional 
crash of a Spanish shell on the turret, the hard, desperate work of man- 
ning the guns in that confined and vibrating air, makes up a combination 
of trials of which the man who has not experienced it can form no pos- 
sible idea. Would you like to know what it is a man behind a turret 
gun has to do ? The turret crew is mustered, six for each gun, captain, 



126 IN THE TURRETS. 

plugger, loader, sponger, liftman and shellman. Each man knows 
exactly what his duties are, and has been drilled and drilled into them 
until he has become an automaton — animated by a soul. The crew is 
kept on deck up to the very last instant, before entering the turret and 
when once there, not a word except that of the division officer is beard. 
The twelve half-naked men stand like statues beside the relentless ma- 
chines of death. The order, "Cast loose and provide," is heard, and the 
twelve machines flash into action. The breach is opened, elevating gear 
inspected, lashings cast off, loading trays inspected, firing locks prepared, 
slides placed, priming wires disposed, and all of the delicate parapher- 
nalia that makes up a modern gun, inspected. Again the men become 
machines, and the order " load " is given. Up from the magazine is 
hauled the projectile and placed on the loading tray. The immense shell 
is pushed home and by the time this is done the powder load has been 
placed behind it. Gas checks and screw locks are adjusted, the breech is 
locked home, the primer inserted, the lanyard hooked and the lock 
cocked. Then comes the sighting, the man for this duty being one of 
selection. Sometimes there is a man on ship who can point one of these 
monster guns with the accuracy of a Texas ranger, and can do nothing 
else well. Sometimes it is an officer who has a good eye, but in every 
case the man at the sight judges for himself, and is the pivot man of the 
engagement. The order to " fire " rings out, the lanyard is pulled and 
the thunderbolt is on its way. Six shots a minute blazed out of the 
Olympia's turret ; the powder smoke poured through the portholes in a 
choking smeach ; with each discharge the turret shook and rocked as 
though in an earthquake; the air was shaken with a continuous crash 
and thunder, but through it all the orders "sponge," "load," "point," 
"fire," went on, and the twelve reeking, choking, quivering men went on, 
with their labors, which chipped off a year of each man's life every in- 
stant. No wonder that when the first round was over the turret-men 
crept out into the open like so many victims of a colliery explosion — 
blackened, gasping, air-beating things. All honor, then, to "the men be- 
hind the guns." 

In his approach to the battle, the commander of the United States 
fleet had taken the precaution to cut the cable connecting the whole 
system of islands with the western world. This was a prudential measure 
dictated by his own isolation and the necessity of cutting off every facility 
the Spaniards possessed to summon aid, or enlighten the home authorities. 
As the event turned out, the precaution was to our own disadvantage, for 
it lengthened the delay in communicating between Washington and 





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WHAT THE "PETREL" DID. 131 

Manila. It was therefore ten days before the nation knew certainly what 
had befallen Dewey's fleet. The garbled report that reached Madrid 
from Manila, revealed by suppression, that Dewey's work had been 
thorough, but there was tormenting anguish in many a home, dread in 
the minds of millions, that the cost of our victory might be equal to its 
magnitude. In Europe the tale was received with stupefied incredulity. 
It could not be credited that the undisciplined "Mongrel" tars of the 
Yankee fleets had fought a battle with the precision and method of the 
most martinet navy in the world. But the story took on the proportions 
of the grotesque humor our countrymen are noted for abroad, when it 
was made known that Dewey had not lost a life, nor suffered a fracture 
in his ships ! The German emperor, who had expressed himself with 
considerable freedom on the incapacity of such an unruly race as the 
Americans of this republic to make effective soldiery or seamen, was the 
first to express his amazement, the first indeed to comprehend the mean- 
ing of the work of Dewey and his crews. 

Only a few years ago the world was called on to acknowledge the appa- 
rition of a new fighting race, the Japanese. But brilliant as their con- 
quest of the Chinese fleets, they had achieved nothing so decisive as 
Dewey's five hours conquest at Manila. Among the piquancies which 
afforded interest of a lighter vein to the tars of the squadron, was the 
ceaseless activity of a little vessel, the Petrel, commanded by an officer 
universally known to the men schooled at the naval academy as "Tough- 
foot " Wood. This equivocal cognomen came from an odd walk. His 
conduct of the Petrel kept up the fame of this eccentric designation. 
The craft was not expected to undertake enterprises of a serious sort ; 
her functions were mainly to scout and do messenger duty. But in the 
hands of the resolute Wood, she rivalled the more serious activities of 
her majestic consorts. When the second part of the battle began, the 
Petrel was half in joke given the mission to silence one of the forts, 
somewhat out of range of the action, but troublesome in case of certain 
eventualities. Her light draught and vigorous engines enabled her to 
penetrate close to the shore where the shallowness of the water had been 
counted one of the main defences by the Spaniards. Even then, it was a 
most daring venture for a craft entirely unprotected by armor, or in any 
serious sense, calculated to confront heavy guns. But had she been of 
the impervious mould of the original Monitor, she could not have dared 
more or done more. Though a target for innumerable guns and at close 
quarters, her battery was worked with such rapidity and precision that the 
fort was silenced. A squadron of the Spanish fleet, too small to take 



132 



THE MISSION OF MERCY. 



part in the open, was concealed in the inlets behind and abounding 
about Cavite. The Petrel boldly pushed in among these and to the 
speechless amazement of the ships' crews, emerged with a tail of captives 
behind her, a mile or more in length. She encountered the fleet of tor- 
pedo boats, calculated to give the finishing stroke to Dewey's ships, when 
the action began, and either captured them, or rendered them useless. 

When the work of death was done, Dewey began the mission of mercy. 
His whole fleet was put at the service of the hospital corps on land, 
where the wounded were lying uncared for. Without soldiers to hold 
the forts, he was of course compelled to guard against future eventuali- 
ties by destroying everything that could be made use of by a land enemy, 
against the fleet. 




IN THE OLYMPIA S MILITARY MAST. 



PART II. 

THE war, from the moment of its opening until its close, had this of 
the novel in it. Both peoples stood as if before a mirror, and each 
could look at all times at the other, seem to hear the accents of the utter- 
ance of each, as by some wizard agency like the telephone. Madrid heard, 
or saw the effect of all that was said in Washington : every hamlet within 
reach of the telegram from end to end of the republic to the other, knew 
all that Spain did and said, so soon as uttered. Strangely enough, this 
added a new and poignant malignity to the war; for hitherto moving in 
mystery, waiting in painful anguish reports of battles and indications of 
policy, the bold and brutal inconsequence of the sword had not stood so 
nakedly revealed in all its inutile hideousness. It certainly did not nerve 
the army of the heroic men who wasted the treasures of Spain, when 
Cervera's fleet was sunk at Santiago, to see the tale recorded day by day, 
that the admirable woman distractedly guiding the destinies of her alien 
country, passed half of her time in tears, that the little lad born to the 
woeful destinies of king, could not comprehend why his mother veiled 
her eyes and denied him the usual childish pleasures. 

Indeed, to the magnanimous, it robbed us of half the glory of our 
facile conquests, when day by day the infantile confidence, or supine in- 
difference of the Madrilene mob, came through the press despatches, re- 
vealing a people piteously incapable of comprehending the remorseless 
destruction of everything that they had prized in their days of glory. 
Such evidences as came, indicated only the complottingof sinister groups 
to bring about a change of kings, to put upon the perishing throne that 
hateful relic of a hateful line, the indescribably dissolute Don Carlos. 
And hand in hand with this numbness, so-to-speak, of the national heart, 
went the inexplicable ineptitude of a ministry, which seemed incapable 
of realizing that the nation was at war. Even that hearty hostility to- 
ward an enemy, which ultimately makes a war a sort of second nature, 
was lacking in the methods of the ministry. In spite of occasional testi- 
monies to the contrary, there was no hatred of the people of the United 
States. The attempts of the satirist press and the thick and thin organs 
of Spanish jingoism, failed ludicrously in sustaining the campaign of 
abuse that preceded the action of Congress. 

Nor were our compatriots delayed on the Peninsula after the outbreak 

(133) 



134 SPANISH SELF-RESTRAINT. 

of hostilities, subject in any case to such severities as other nations at 
war visit upon the helpless non-combatant caught in the country. There 
was no end of testimony to show that the citizens of this republic, moved 
about in their wonted ways in Madrid, on business or whatever kept them 
there, and their Spanish neighbors proffered no sign of hostility or in the 
slightest degree molested their freedom of action. This extraordinary 
self-restraint went so far that the enterprising journalists in search of 
sensational despatches, were permitted to send volumes by cable, and if 
confined to mere personal appreciations or conjectures they were never 
estopped. More extraordinary still, the Spanish statesmen became for a 
moment as garrulous and confidential as our own politicians in the stress 
of a disastrous campaign. The highest personage in the state— the 
Regent herself, was almost daily quoted in interviews in which the cause 
of Spain was sadly admitted to be without hope ; that attacked by a 
major force on a violently fraudulent pretext, Spain could only combat 
with such arms as her half century of reverses had left her, the giant 
power which was using that power wholly as a giant, and not as a mag- 
nanimous people. 

Almost daily the mountebank prime minister, Sagasta, was forced to 
deny on the authority of the cabinet, wide-reaching comments purporting 
to come from members of the government. The concurring testimony of 
events and utterances leave no doubt, that even after the sailing of the 
vaunted Cape de Verde fleet, the Regent and Cabinet could not credit 
the doleful fact that the helpless monarchy was really embarked in war; 
and the evidences, although not official, were of the sort that is called in- 
controvertible, that almost from the moment Minister Woodward left 
Madrid, the Cabinet and Queen -Regent were seeking means to stay car- 
nage, and resume peace on any terms dictated by the Washington author- 
ities. What would be thought of such an utterance as this of our cabi- 
net ministers pending a decisive campaign ; yet Senor Moret a Cabinet 
minister made no contradiction when he was quoted as saying: 

" We did not want the war. There was no reason for the war, even 
from the point of view professedly taken by the Americans. We had 
no desire to retain Cuba, if the majority of her people had willed other- 
wise. Autonomy might have been followed after a time by complete in- 
dependence, if the Cuban people had so desired, by the employment of 
peaceful and legal methods. We made all this very plain— too plain, as 
it turned out, since our concessions were mistakenly construed into proofs 
of conscious weakness. But the impatience of the United States to enter 
on their new policy of conquest and territorial aggrandizement, would not 



WAR HAS MANY SURPRISES. 135 

allow of the peaceful evolution of the destinies of Cuba. The ground 
for a pretext for armed intervention was fast slipping from their grasp 
with the daily declining strength of the insurrection under the new 
regime, and events had to be forced to precipitate a conflict. Events 
were forced. War was upon us, while we were still believing in peace, 
and all we have to do now is to confront the situation and act the part 
assigned us with the serenity and the firmness that becomes brave and 
honest men fighting against injustice." 

Asked further what Spain would be willing to do to end the war there 
and then — this was just after Manila — Senor Moret said : 

"Events must determine. War has many surprises, and there are pos- 
sibilities in the future that may overturn calculations seemingly the most 
solidly founded. One thing is certain, however, the United States will 
lose more by the war, whatever its outcome, than we can lose. She will 
lose her prestige as a champion of right and the apostle of peace. She 
1ms now entered into the category of conquering nations, and as such 
she will be obliged to change completely her manner of being. She will 
have to keep a standing army to protect her territory at home, and a 
powerful navy to protect her outlying possessions. The power which 
she has won by her conquests in the realm of science, she will have to 
exchange for the power won by the sword, which as it is won in a day, 
may be lost in a day. She has set the example of aggression on the 
rights of other nations, and this example will be followed by those na- 
tions which feel conscious of their strength to follow it. The laurels 
which she has won in the moral realm she will have to exchange for the 
laurels of war, which must be watered with blood to keep them fresh, for 
they wither in peace. The military ideal will thus replace the moral 
ideal with her people, and her respect for force will take the place of re- 
spect for justice. In a word, she has turned backward on the path of 
civilization, and placed upon herself fetters — fetters forged in injustice 
and wrong — which the older nations have been striving to cast off." 

Another member of the cabinet declared that Spain had been waiting 
only for an intimation from the United States, that her petition would be 
favorably received, to sue for peace on any terms. He distrusted the 
continuance of the war, lest Spain should gain a victory, which while in 
no sense bearing on the ultimate terms of peace, would so embitter the 
public mind in the United States, that the Washington Cabinet would find 
itself compelled to ask more than it had intended. The Queen-Regent 
herself, set all the machinery of diplomacy in motion from the instant she 
realized that war was a finality ; and the Pope made known at various 



136 A CLEAN-HANDED STATESMAN. 

legations, that if the Washington Cabinet would give ear, its utmost de- 
mands would be complied with. Sagasta himself blew hot and cold. 
One day he was on his knees to every diplomat who approached him, 
praying for peace ; the next he had the blood of all Spain in his eyes, 
roaring out maledictions on the wretched Cervera and Montojo, while 
holding the Yankees up before high heaven as ravening monsters gloat- 
ing in bloodshed, and as insatiate as their British kin, for their neighbors' 
territory. And in spite of the concurrent judgment of all who ventured 
to speak, that he was the most incapable of ministers, an ignoramus and 
traitor to his party, recreant to his principles, he still held the shivered 
helm. The force of faction ran so high, that in sheer desperation the 
miserable monarch was obliged to maintain him in power. 

No man of distinction would take the trying place, though for a mo- 
ment the admired Polavieja, blind but virile, the only spotless administra- 
tor that Spain has recently found in a place of trust, gave a half consent 
to assume the dolorous mission of signing the last vestiges of Spain's ter- 
ritorial grandeur away. He had but a year or two ago returned from 
Manila, where he had left a record of clean-handed administration ; had 
so far as was humanely possible, reconciled the unspeakable insurgents to 
the metropolitan power. It was only his blindness that in the end seems 
to have compelled him to relinquish the uncongenial task. While the 
Queen trusted him, the Spanish public, as far as a Spanish public ever 
takes part in forming the resolutions of a cabinet or dynasty, approved 
the selection of the General, and indeed there was no doubt that had he 
so chosen, Polavieja might have walked from his private apartment to the 
palace of the Regent, and proclaimed himself dictator, or protector of the 
realm. 

He was the only Governor- General that ever returned from a billet, 
poor as when he left. He was further endeared to the Spaniards by his 
high-minded refusal to continue in his regal post in the Philippines, be- 
cause the ministry falsified a promise that he had made to the rebels. It 
was in the discharge of his duties to the state that he lost, temporarily at 
least, the sight of his eyes. Perhaps his strongest claim upon the saga- 
cious Christina, was that he was conspicuously unidentified with any of 
the factions warring for the destruction of the country, as well as the ex- 
pulsion of the young Alfonso. It was remarked with the biting humor 
that the Spaniards above all people throw into their expressions, that the 
instant Polavieja came within the Queen's circle, Weyler and Robledo, 
the arms and eyes of the Carlist plotters, quit the capital, as if in dread 
of the intuitive perceptions of an honest man. A heart of stone might 



A MISERABLE MOTHER. 137 

have been touched when Polavieja was borne to the palace, to meet a woman 
who spoke to him between sobs, and virtually handed over all her preroga- 
tives with the single admonition to save the people from blood and the 
miseries of civil war. 

In fact, this stranger woman, in a strange land, hated by the great and 
haughty, mistrusted by the lowly, deserted by the army and only half- 
heartedly sustained by the men and minions who owed her honors and 
places, seems to have been the only person in the Spanish capital whose 
heart was touched by the misery of the nation. For Madrid went on in 
the usual course of febrile gayety. Bull fights, dinners, receptions, the- 
atre parties, bicycle meets, automobile reviews, the open air frolics and 
frivolities that signalize the French boulevardiers, when the idle seek dis- 
traction, marked the life of the capital, unchecked by the astounding re- 
verses on sea and land. Indeed the stranger in Madrid would never have 
suspected, were it not for the sinister whisperings and over-earnest dem- 
onstrations of the habitues of cafes, and public places that the monarchy 
was gasping in the agonies of death. With other horrors hanging above 
her, the unfortunate Austrian feared for the life of her son ; his childish 
pleasures were restrained from day to day, she dared not trust him in the 
streets, nor allow him any of the usual recreations of the palace garden, 
or such public ceremonials as are deemed essential to keep up the tradi- 
tions of royalty. 

Still gloomier precautions were adopted. The miserable mother was 
obliged, or felt herself obliged to taste all the food prepared for her boy, 
admonished from many sources that the malignants at work, were ready 
to call in assassination to further their schemes. Even when the child 
was sick, her heart bursting for the disasters of her country, she was 
forced to appear in official places, with a tearful smile and the affectation 
of as much unconcern, as was compatible with the head of a crumbling 
state. The boy was ill, ill to the verge of death. And Spain was in- 
formed by the official bulletins, that he was merely suffering from a child- 
ish disorder. Madrid grew hot with the stifling heat, known only to that 
arid plain, upon which the will of a monarch " With malice aforethought " 
as a cynical historian remarked, had set the capital, in order to be geo- 
graphically in the centre of the Peninsula. 

No one who can afford to take a train, possessing the most modest 
wherewithal, ever remains in Madrid in the torrid days of July and 
August. Indeed, there are very few constitutions equal to the peculiarly 
trying dry heat and furnace air that rushes down from what seem the 
molten masses of metal called the Sierra guadarrama. Christina's Aus- 



138 A LEGACY OF HATRED. 

trian physicians warned her incessantly that neither her own life nor her 
boy's was safe for an instant in the capital, enduring as she was a strain 
more trying than severe illness, and the boy scarcely recovered from a 
typhoid attack. But to add to the malignancy of the climate, the palace 
in Madrid is a pest house of bad drainage and outworn contrivances. 

The stranger Queen, instructively enough, is one of the rare sovereigns 
who from the first adopted the constitutional dogma propounded by 
Thiers and practiced by the British, that the king reigns but does not 
govern. And so loyally has she carried this out, that while she secretly 
hated and disapproved of the absolutist practices of her greatest minister, 
Canovas del Castillo, she gave him loyal support in accordance with her 
oath of office as head of the state. Canovas left her a legacy of undying 
hatred, for his partisans were almost as envenomed against the " Aus- 
trian " as the socialists or republicans. Not the least therefore of the 
Regent's perils, just as the war began, was an astute effort on the part of 
the conservatives to set her authority aside by law. 

The propriety of this was just plausible enough to mislead the more 
generous of the Queen's partisans. It was claimed that article seventy- 
eight of the Spanish constitution provides that in the event of the mi- 
nority of the sovereign, the Regency must be held by the nearest member of 
the reigning family of Spanish nationality. If this were really the intent 
of the constitution, Christina was obviously debarred from the Regency. 
The dispute, therefore, turned on the meaning of the term " nationality " 
and the acceptance of the universal practice, that marriage enfranchises 
the stranger, that Christina when she gave her hand to Alfonso XII., 
thereby became a Spanish citizen. It was, therefore, seriously debated 
whether the princess, Isabella, the young king's aunt, should not be sub- 
stituted, and in favor of this it was shown that half of Don Carlos' ad- 
herents would fall off, for their strongest claim to the adhesion of the 
provinces was the obtrusion of an Austrian arch-duchess upon the throne 
of Castile and Arragon. Sagasta, infinite in craft and a monument of 
guile, brought this most formidable complot to an end, and indeed the 
old renegade has shown a certain consistence in his devotion to the lonely 
woman struggling to preserve a throne for her son and a country to rule 
over. The boy king has since his babyhood looked upon the venerable 
statesman as a familiar, almost a kinsman, for in other days it was not an 
unfrequent sight at the palace, to surprise the little boy clambering up 
the knees of the patriarch, and fondling him as if he were in reality the 
''grandpapa" which the boy endearingly termed him. 

Christina's detestation of Weyler and her unconcealed disgust for his, 



THE COURT OF MADRID. 139 

operations in Cuba, made her administration still more difficult when 
dealing with the army, for in spite of his antipathetic character, We 
lias preserved from the first a stout following among his militant country- 
men. 

The graces of womanhood and the virtues of the sex, would hardly be 
looked fur in an Austrian princess, yet it is one of the griefs against 
Christina that she has transformed the court of Madrid, which rivalled in 
profligacy the most tainted in Europe, until it is now as decorous as is 
Queen Victoria's. She has discouraged dissoluteness on the part of the 
grandees, unobtrusively inculcated modest demeanor and restraint in con- 
viviality, outraging the women by a simplicity in dress considered by the 
extravagant almost ignoble in the royal court. From all that the world 
is permitted to see of the life and conduct of Christina, she embodies 
much of what Macaulay meant, when he said that Madame de Maintenon 
surpassed in tact all the men of her time, as much as the Grecians sur- 
passed the Asiatics in refinement of language and literature: and this is 
an extraordinary tribute. For the Austrian, especially the house of 
Hapsburg, is not celebrated for the amenities of manner or speech, which 
win the adulation of courts or peoples. Indeed for her son's sake the 
Regent has led a life of persistent political management. Even in her 
dress she studies in order to placate the people and win adherents for her 
boy. When in June, the heavens were hung in black fur the disasters on 
sea and land, the unfortunate woman undertook a ceremonial of great 
moment to the Spaniards— the administration of confirmation to the 
young king. She arrayed herself for the function in dazzling splendor, 
took her place among the radiant groups of courtiers, sat in the royal 
chapel during the ceremonial, in every breath and motion the ideal of a 
queenly woman in royal state. 

Canovas' legacy of hatred was hardly a more formidable obstacle than 
the debasing condition into which he had corrupted the Cortes. This 
congress of Spain has become a mere echo of the political faction which 
happens for the moment to hold the nation's purse-strings. Even the 
dimensions of the two Houses, answering to our Senate and Congress, give 
an intimation of the slight part these legislatures are permitted in the 
government of the monarchy. The congress of deputies, and the senate 
together constitute the Cortes, each body being equal in power. The 
senators, however, as in France, are only in part elected; the monarch 
appoints a certain number, while a certain other fraction take their seats 
by right of birth. The constitution endeavored to hold a check on the 
hereditary and appointed senators, by giving a slight majority to those 
8 



140 BRITISH ESTIMATE OF SPAIN. 

elected. The deputies are chosen for a term of five years, one represent- 
ative fur every 50,000 inhabitants. Nominally, the body legislates with 
as much freedom as our own Congress, but in reality, no law is ever 
passed that is not devised b}' the junta in power, or, rather, the several 
juntas, for party is a mere name in Spain, each group supporting its 
enemy whenever the exigencies of politics seem to require a change. 
The elections are a mere form. Any minister who holds the purse can 
fill the Congress with whomsoever he pleases. 

From 1808 until 1814, Spain was virtually a British protectorate. 
The armies of Britain ostensibly sent to deliver the masses from the 
"liberal" experiment of Napoleon, held the country about as we now 
hold Cuba. In the British isles the sentiment in favor of the liberation 
of Spain had been wrought up by very much the same processes that 
tired our republican sympathies for the Cuban "patriots." No sooner, 
however, had Wellington's army begun operations than the spirit which 
had revolted against the clement and on the whole enlightened system 
introduced by Napoleon, broke out angrily against the imperious exac- 
tions, the supercilious contempt and characteristic British disregard for 
everything that was not to be found on the British Isles. The private 
despatches, the official reports, all the material essential for the making 
up of history, sent by British agents diplomatic and otherwise, are filled 
with the immeasurable contempt of the liberators for the libelees. 

So just minded a man as General Napier, in his history of the penin- 
sular war, can scarcely bring himself to speak with calmness of the oper- 
ations entrusted to the various Spanish generals called upon to lead their 
embattled countrymen. Nor will there be found in any British authorit}^ 
any evidence anywhere that the Spaniards demeaned themselves as trust- 
worthy warriors, or administrators to be depended upon. ■ Wellington 
himself, wherever he was called upon to battle with his handful of Brit- 
ons, almost invariably either ignored the hundreds of thousands of Span- 
iards under his command, or with a disdainful reticence implied that in- 
stead of a help, they were a hurt to him. Yet from the testimony of the 
French, which could hardly be regarded as prejudiced, from the national 
histories by liberal and even democratic Spaniards, it is impossible to be- 
lieve that when Spain for eight years, was virtually an armed camp, the 
embattled peasantry were not a main factor in destroying the armies 
which had conquered ail Europe. 

Nor is it necessary to go beyond the memorable defence if Saragossa, 
or the astounding rout and capture of an entire French army at Baylen, to 
comprehend that although unfortunately led, badly disciplined, the Span- 



A ONCE POTENT NATION. 141 

iards never fearing death, were able at decisive times and places to wrest 
victory from armies and generals who had never known defeat in any 
other country of Europe. From the military tutelage between 18U8 and 
lrtl4, the Spaniards feil under a commercial protectorate on the part of 
the British, which with some diminution holds to this day. Hence, what 
the world calls Spanish degeneration, may be traced to the insidious pre- 
dominance of British arts and British interests. The Spaniards were 
forced into war as the consummate result of British handiwork. It is 
easy, therefore, to understand the almost stupefied disillusion of the 
wretched peninsulars when Congress having sent its haughty message, 
the British jingo presses instantly, and as if by preconcert, denounced the 
miserable race as incapable of administering a home government, and 
consequently ludicrously unfitted for the charge of great colonies. 

Causes, far too deep for consideration in a history whose purpose is 
merely to follow the actual events of the war, have for more than a hun- 
dred years borne down the Spanish people, and outworn, so to speak, the 
original sources of the race. Spain, as compared to all other nations, is 
the shadow of the shade of a greatness once immeasurably more great 
than anything we recognize in national existence to-day. And strangely 
enough, hard-hearted as we are supposed to be, chief of the people who 
as Matthew Arnold says " See straight and write clearly," we are more 
impulsively moved by our historic allusions than any other existing con- 
geries of races. For it is beyond dispute that when we threw down the 
cartel to this emaciated shadow of a once potent nation, we made our- 
selves believe that we were confronting a peril, and that in the " Interest 
of humanity " we were invoking the " God of battles " to decide between 
two disputants, not markedly unequal in faculties and the ways and 
means that determine great struggles. 

It was forgotten that we were a people of nearly seventy millions ; ac- 
tive, energetic, irresistible in force when our mind is made up: that 
thirty-five years ago we had organized the mightiest force ever known 
among civilized men, that we had carried on a war prodigious as a hun- 
dred years of campaigning in the old world, that we had revolutionized 
naval warfare, that we had by inventions and inspirations out-dated and 
antiquated the most approved war implements of all other countries ; that 
in that chief essential of war — money — there was absolutely no imagi- 
nable end to what we might raise; that the combined world could not ex- 
haust us, if embarked in a war essential to our existence ; and that these 
stupendous agencies were in cold blood and on the bad faith of an un- 



142 SUPPRESSING THE NEWS. 

known segment of the Cuban people, lent to the crushing of the oldest 
civilization in the world, upheld by the merest spectres of a people. 

In fact, so far had Spain gone out of the list of nations, that there was 
no personality in the monarchy, unless the foreign Queen-Regent Chris- 
tina be excepted, that we could look to as giving any expression to the 
feeling of the nation we were about to throttle. Statesmen, Spain had 
none. Her legislators were a body of derisory rhetoricians, her diplo- 
mats, chattering imbeciles mumbling the phrases of three centuries ago. 
Her treasury bankrupt, her armies mere striplings, crowded into the 
ranks while children of their age are at school, in more fortunate lands. 
There was a vague belief, however, that the navy built in foreign dock- 
yards, modeled on British masterpieces, and to a great extent indebted 
to British hints and helps for their essentials, would be strong enough to 
at least dispute the seas with us, and, perhaps, even for one intoxicating 
week or month, force New York and other great seaports to seal them- 
selves in. 

But worse than all this, the war forced upon Spain by Congress was 
not believed in by any considerable number of the Spanish themselves. 
And it is almost an acknowledged statement of the case to say, that the 
war was half over before the ignorant peasantry of Andalusia, Biscay, 
Valencia, or even Castile, knew that the last remnants of what Spain 
once was, had passed under the flag of the youngest of nations. For in 
keeping with other species of misrule and decrepitude, the presses of the 
large cities were permitted only to print such matter as came to them 
from a hide-bound censor, at the elbow of a valetudinarian minister, whose 
political convictions, not a man among the varied groups that have alter- 
nately battened on and borne down the forces of the monarchy, knew. 
The nominal head of the government — Sagasta — beginning his career as 
a revolutionist, had figured in alternate cabinets as a republican, a mon- 
archist, an absolutist, and so to speak, quietist. Probably not three peo- 
ple in ten of the influential masses of Spain knew that the monarchy had 
accepted the republic's challenge, ten days after the war began. Nor was 
it until the crushing of Cervera's fleet that even the well informed sur- 
mised that all was not going well with the armies and navies of the 
monarchy. 

The debacle at Manila was so refined by equivocal misrepresentations — 
in fact bald lying, that even official personages were uncertain of what 
really had happened on that fateful Sunday morning of the first of May. 
For ten days after the destruction of Cervera's fleet, the cafes of Madrid 
and the local rostra of each of the provincial capitals, were swelling in 



THE RULE OF CANOVAS. 143 

pride over the undaunted heroism of the old admiral in breaking from his 
Santiago lair and dispersing the Yankee fleet; and it may be doubted 
whether half the Spanish people know to-day that its proudest squadron 
was conquered and sunk within three hours of its appearance outside the 
guns of the Mono. 

The Spaniard, while a brave man in one sense, has never shown himself 
a patriot. Nothing could more subtly illustrate this than the pitiable re- 
straints of the Sagasta cabinet from the opening of the war, down. For 
even while our navies were sweeping Spain's armaments away, the 
brooding and never ending fear of the capital, was not our fleets or 
armies, but the odious spectre of the Carlist revolution. In other words, 
Spain could never be brought to arouse itself en ma&se, at the cry of the 
country in danger, as the French did in 1793, when they held monarchical 
revolt in check, and crushed the combined mercenaries of Europe at their 
very frontiers. The Cortes was a more dreadful field of doubt to the 
Regent and her Cabinet than the beleaguering fleets at Santiago and 
Havana. For the chiefs of the factions might at any moment say too 
much, might divulge to a listening people exactly what the status was, 
might bring about that indefinable psychologic moment which Bismarck 
characterized as the stroke of fate for anybody who had resolution 
enough to risk all. Nor could the loyalty of Spain's soldiers, who had 
been trained in the command of Spain's armies, be entirely trusted. 
Weyler, associated with much of the monarchy's misfortunes, yet rep- 
resenting the most successful of the hateful repressive campaigns con- 
ducted in Cuba, found a very formidable following among the nobles; 
among the army personalities who retained a secular influence over their 
subordinates. In fact, Spain accepted the war as a man might accept an 
athlete's challenge, hands and feet corded and a blinder over one eye. 

The monarchy, exhausted in a thousand other ways, had been absolutely 
squeezed dry by the "strong" tenure of Canovas del Castillo's rule. In 
many ways Canovas was the type of the "strong man " that weak people 
love, and self-reliant people endure if they do not admire. He had 
restored the monarchy in as far as the activities, genius and prevision of 
any one man could bring about such a miracle. He had a large share of 
the political astuteness that the world admired in Bismarck. He could 
see through and prepare for all the machinations a diplomatic or factional 
enemy could invent. On a larger arena, and with such forces as Bis- 
marck, Cavour or Napoleon III. had at hand, there could be no doubt 
that Canovas would have proved equal if not superior to all three. For 
he had what none of these epochal figures possessed — an immeasurable 



144 CASTELLAR'S ELOQUENCE. 

fund of patience and an unparalleled faculty of reticence. Nothing seems 
to have for an instant deflected the deeply -studied out combinations by 
which he made Spain seem a great power, and in fact forced the acknowl- 
edgment of this status from the reluctant concert of Europe. 

From the short and fitful fever of the most ardent democracy, it was 
the sinister task of Canovas to insensibly transform Spanish hierarchies 
into the most perverse cult of despotism. That is, the dangerous prac- 
tice of all the forms of feudal times without ostensibly declaring the 
principles ; so that the system of Canovas really typified the worst 
excesses of oligarchic abuse since the Italian republics of the middle 
ages. The man, the multitude — anything less than a noble born, came 
to have neither weight, voice nor interest in the conduct of public 
affairs. This too with all the forms of democratic constitutionalism in 
existence. The election for the Cortes were as little the expression of 
public sentiment, as the votes of an Imperial corps legislatif in the hey- 
day of Napoleon's personal sway. 

Like Sagasta, Canovas had begun life as an enlightened liberal. He 
had even written a history of Spain which is ranked by impartial minds 
as one of the most instructive and carefully collated annals of the period 
treated. It must have been his familiarity with the ingrained perversity 
of his countrymen that inspired him to a conduct in office, whicli finds -no 
parallel except in Macchiavelli's science of duplicity "The Conduct of a 
Prince." Added to his contempt for the understanding and insincerity 
of the nobility, he came to have a still profounder disgust of the peasantry, 
or as we should call them, the plain people, during the turbulent era of 
the republic. To the world at large, Spain seemed to have bloomed 
anew. Never were her public men listened to by the world with more 
attention than when the oratorical group, called into eminence by the 
republic, spoke from the tribune and declared the Spanish people a new- 
born race. The world was witched with a Castellar's eloquence. And 
certainly speech more noble, adorned by everything that we understand 
by eloquence, never broke from an official platform. Castellar for a brief 
time held the attention of mankind as the oracle, not only of Spain, but 
of all liberal Europe. 

But under the arts and malign activities of Canovas this brilliant group 
of democratic liberators were dispersed and muzzled as ignominiously as 
the terror dispersed the brilliant and brave young paladins of the Gironde 
in 1793. 

Rarely in the history of nations has such a spectacle been presented as 
that of the republic of 1872, for almost between the setting of the sun 



A SHORT-LIVED REPUBLIC. 



145 



and the rising, a perfectly organized administration perished, and the 
President reappeared as a supporter of the monarchy abolished in derision 
but five years before. Never was Johnson's acrid definition of a patriot 
more decisively vindicated than in the extraordinary turn-coating of the 
Spanish liberals. Canovas displayed his comprehension of his time and 
people by disdainfully making use of every one of the leading men who 
had come to power during the short reign of the populace. Corruption 
in its most flagrant form, a corruption that would have turned Horace 
Walpole green with envy, set in, until it is doubtful whether any man of 
any eminence, social force or character, could be found in the whole 
peninsula who had not sold his influence, his conscience, or his trust. 

Strangely enough, the onty obverse to this hideous picture is the Queen- 
Regent Christina, the Austrian, as her enemies called her since the loss of 
Canovas, in imitation of the disparagement of Marie Antoinette. The 
Queen by the testimony even of her enemies, set out to make honor, 
honesty, even frugality admirable in the public eye, and from the 
moment that this was understood she became the abhorrence of the 
ruling forces of every capital city in Spain. 




SEISOR CASTELLAK. 




1-1 

o 





PART III. 

UNTIL Dewey's conquest, the only point in the Philippine empire 
known to the people of this republic, was the chief city of the main 
island of this group, Manila. This was known only through articles of 
commerce, twine and bagging I The islands lie very much in the posture 
of the British Isles — Luzon, the larger, is the only one peopled to any 
extent by Europeans. There are thirteen bodies of land in this group, of 
an area of from 30 to 2,000 square miles. The entire area of the larger 
islands of this group is set down at 114,326, with a population of from 
7,000,000 to 20,000,000. Manila, the capital and seat of the Spanish Vice- 
roy, has 350,000 inhabitants, though the Spanish occupants at times run 
as high as 10,000; only a small percentage of the mass is white. 

In so far as verified knowledge goes, the Philippine lands are fairly as 
fabulous to us to-day as they were when the Spanish seized them under 
Philip II. Their conquest was not marked by the marches and battles 
that make the Mexican and Peruvian discoveries tales of such fascinating 
interest, The islands peopled by the fiercest of the Polyponesian races 
have never been thoroughly explored even by adventurous explorers. 
Almost the only facts we have concerning the interior of the empire are 
the reports of missionaries, who have wrought steadily with the ferocious 
natives since Spain set her flag over the ports of vantage. It was in 
1521 that the illustrious navigator, Hernando Magellan, came into the 
noble harbor of Manila. He was in search of the Malluca islands, then 
claimed by the Portugese. Though unable to explore the vast surface 
of the islands, 1,000 miles in length and 400 in breadth, Magellan re- 
ported them as the "pearls of the Eastern Ocean !" But as there were 
no cities built of gold, no legends of gems and precious metals, the earlier 
hordes of Spanish adventurers made no attempt to penetrate inland. 
The islands were invaded slowly, but even to-day, hardly a thousandth 
part has been touched by outside civilization. 

The Spaniards have never attempted to utilize the inconceivably fertile 
valleys, nor export the rare woods that are known to abound in limitless 
plenty. For reasons not easily deduced, Spain never fully conquered 
the islands, but contented herself with establishing garrisons in the more 
inviting seaports, where traffic has been carried on in the products of the 
tribes that utilize the rich produce of the teeming lands. To colonize 

(147) 



[48 THE PHILIPPINOS. 

»uch a diverse population— no two tribes speaking the same tongue, 
would tax the resources of all Europe ; Spain never undertook colonizing 
in the sense of assimilating the native races that come under her sway. 
Beyond the conversion to Christianity, the Spanish never intended to 
lead the savage into the ways of western life. Public works, the gradual 
introduction of western customs, these Spain never attempted, nor, con- 
sidering the disposition of the fierce, slothful races occupying the islands, 
would this have been possible. There are indeed scores of races in the 
Philippines irreclaimable in the first generation, though the experience of 
the French and British in the Polynesian ocean, shows that the following 
generations after conquest, gradually succumb to a dominating race, in 
the externals of civilized habits. 

A French scientific mission sent to the Philippines, revealed all that is 
known either of the tribes inhabiting the unoccupied islands, or the ca- 
pacities of the soil for the cultivation of tropic products. Races, styled 
Indians, Negritos, Malays, Manthans, and a score more, as unintelligibly 
differentiated, teem on lands so rich that they produce year after year, 
without a stroke of husbandry, the staples that form the food of unknown 
millions. What has been the bane and the blessing of the Spanish ad- 
ministration, has been a steady influx of Japanese and Chinese. The 
bane, because they serve as instigators of insurrection to the naturally 
docile native races ; blessings, because they supply steady labor, not to be 
bought or brow-beaten from the indolent natives. 

The Negritos, (little blacks) are so called because they are absurdly 
small in stature, resembling the African race only in the intense blackness 
of their skin. Tradition, no one has pointed out how founded, ascribes 
to these dwarfish blacks, the original settlement of the islands. The 
dominant race throughout, however, seems to be the Malay-Sulus— a con- 
glomerate of Indians, African and Caucasian. These are Mohamme- 
dan in faith, ungovernably cruel, and capable of incredible perseverance 
and constancy to their religion. They are really governed occultly, by 
their own Sultan, who gives but nominal allegiance to the Spanish con- 
queror. It is the concurrent testimony of all who have studied these 
fierce nomads, that they embody all the ferocity associated with the North 
American Indian. Had the race been as numerous as the early aborig- 
ines on this continent, it would have depopulated Asia long ago. 

The man who makes himself amenable to the few laws governing the 
loose social fabric of the Malay, is not imprisoned, not executed. 
Strangely enough, the inhuman monsters who hold the lives of the non- 
believers so lightly, shrink from inflicting death by mere agreement, as 



150 THE DOMINANT RACE. 

civilized society has always done. But for certain misdeeds the culprit is 
separated from his wife and family, who become the property or spoil 
either of the tribe, or the person against whom the crime has been com- 
mitted. The convict's life then belongs to the tribe. He is set aside as 
an instrument of sacred vengeance. He takes an oath, under awful and 
mysterious forms, to rid the world of unbelievers in any way that his 
master — the priest of Mahomet — may dictate. But the oath is not enough 
to qualify the malefactor for this sanguinary apostolate. He waits pas- 
sivelv the hour and place to redeem the lost paradise. The Panditos — 
priests, watch over him every hour, they guide his mind in every waking 
moment, insidiously shaping the enthusiastic longings to deeds of 
murder. 

In time, under the awful schooling of mingled mysticism and unbridled 
lust, the brain maddened to ungovernable impulse, sees nothing in the 
natural sense. With mental prostitution, goes on an unceasing training 
of the body, until every muscle is wrought into the endurance of steel. 
The limbs like the members of a tiger or panther, the bones elastic, the 
skin like parchment in resistance. When the body has been wrought 
into as nearly a perfect machine as the most enthusiastic athlete ever 
dreamed, then the mind is operated on with all that is likely to seduce 
the senses of a sacerdotal libertinism. There are mystic seasons of 
song, when the minstrel acolytes of the priesthood, sing roniaunts of the 
ecstasies that await the faithful who enter the prophet's presence through 
the heroism of slaughter. The dazzled victim is shown visions of the 
voluptuous delights that he is prevented from enjoying, simply by the re- 
tention of his mortal frame. When exultation and desire are at the full, 
the fanatic's mission is confided to him. He is launched on the way to 
kill and die, and he seeks both as the lover seeks his mistress. Death to 
him in this state of mind is a rapture that he longs to enjoy. 

Hence no valor, no weapons, no foresight can wholly check the mur- 
ders relentlessly regular as the massacres of the Hermit assassin of the 
early ages whence the name arose. Neither the sanctuary of the altar, the 
seclusion of the palace, nor the bristling guns of fort or barrack, stop the 
Malay when he is launched on his deadly work. He will creep into a 
guarded city under the bellies of cattle ; he will assume amazing dis- 
guises ; lie will suffer the pangs of hunger for days and endure hardships 
that involve death, to reach the person of the chosen victim. 

A French scientific observer who traveled in the country and made a 
study of the Malay, condenses the results in this hideous episode : " A com- 
pany of eleven Malays divided into three or four bands, managed to get 



152 A GHASTLY STORY. 

through the gates of the town, bending under loads of fodder for cattle, 
which they pretended to have for sale, and in which they had hidden their 
creeses. Quick as lightning they stabbed the guards. Then in their 
frenzied course they struck all whom they met. Hearing the cry of 
* Los juramentados ! ' the soldiers seized their arms. The juramentados 
rushed on them fearlessly, their creeses clutched in their hands. The 
bullets fell like hail among them. They bent, crept, glided and struck. 
One of them, whose breast was pierced through and through by a 
bullet, rose and flung himself on the troops. He was again transfixed 
by a bayonet ; he remained erect, vainly striving to reach his enemy, 
who held him impaled on the weapon. Another soldier had to run 
up and blow the man's brains out before he let go his prey. When 
the hist of the juramentados had fallen and the corpses were picked up 
from the streets, which consternation had rendered empty, it was found 
that these eleven men had with their creeses hacked fifteen soldiers 
to pieces, not to reckon the wounded. 

"And what wounds ! the head of one corpse was cut off as clean as if it 
had been done with the sharpest razor; another soldier was almost cut in 
two ! The first of the wounded to come under my hand was a soldier of 
the third regiment who was mounting guard at the gate through which 
some of the assassins entered ; his left arm was fractured in three places; 
his shoulder and breast were literally cut up like mincemeat; amputation 
appeared to be the only chance for him, but in that lacerated flesh there 
was no longer a spot from which could be cut a thread." 

Immured in a land to the eye sensuous, to the mind deadening, the 
mingled religion and profligacy combine to make the people hateful to 
each other. Denied the distracting problems that check these latent pro- 
pensities in civilized mankind, the Philippine wars upon his fellows. He 
lives in the exaltation of demoniac cruelties, he wreaks a vulpine venge- 
ance on the weak — satiating passion, while winning the proclaimed pari- 
dise of his prophets. Up to this time neither the curious traveler, nor 
the still more adventurous seeker for markets and treasure incident to 
untraveled lands, has ventured to penetrate the recesses of these san- 
guinary races. 

The religious missionary, whose life is gladly given up in the course 
of his propaganda, is the only confidant, the sole stranger, not treated as 
an intruder. Strangely enough, the Jesuit teachings have an irresistible 
attraction for the most ferocious of these hideous malefactors. Tens of 
thousands, if the testimony of recent French investigators is to be credited, 
have been won over to the gentle precepts of Christ. Universal conver- 



THE MISSION FATHERS. 



153 



sion, it is believed, could Lave been achieved had not the missionaries in- 
sisted on secular changes hateful to the nomad nature of the insulars. 
For reasons easily conjecturable, the mission fathers make it a point to 
separate the convert from the idolater. Hence, they are gathered in gnat 
companies of thousands, marched in a body to districts remote from their 
old associates, and set on the path of transformation in civilized com- 




HERMITAGE ST. NICHOLAS, MANILA. 



m unes or villages. In this way there have been formed countless oases, 
so to speak, in the world of the savage people, where the primitive lights 
of a civilization that takes us back centuries, is shed upon the motley fed- 
erations, held together by the unknown God and his irresistible teachers. 
Father Saturnin of the Jesuit Society of Madrid, converted and domiciled 
5.000 of the most ferocious of the far-distant tribes in a single year. 

The Island of Sulu, lying between the main Philippine lands and 
Borneo, has been for centuries regarded, by the Malay Mahommedans, 
precisely as Mecca is held by the western Moslems— the sacred precincts 
of Mahomet. The religious carnivals and traffic, so far as understood by 
the tribes, were centred in this mysterious sanctuary. It was in this isle 
that the first trace of the predominant Malay was found. Hence the race 
spread over the vast wilds of this island continent. Indeed, in such fitful 
glimpses as we catch of them from 1480 down to their frequent uprisings 



154 MALAY PIRATES. 

against the Spanish, they suggest the unqualifiable hordes that overran 
the island of Brittania as we first know it. From the sparse peoples of 
Polynesia to the straits of Malacca, the name became a synonym of pro- 
digal ferocity. They were like the half-human nomads that overwhelmed 
Brittania, expert sailors. They swarmed in their light and graceful proas 
over the measureless archipelagos that fringe the eastern reaches of China 
almost to the coast of what is now known as Australia. 

Even after Spain had awed the coasts into subjection, the Malay hordes 
kept up piratry, and the desolation of all accessible peoples. What the 
Indians under the British were to the pioneer of the Continental patriots, 
the Malay long remained to the scattered colonies of the Spaniards, as 
well as the peaceably disposed natives. Abhorred as bloodthirsty mis- 
creants, whose fanaticism counted any form of atrocity, a sacred obliga- 
tion — they made their sway — even though permanent, a synonym of dev- 
astation, death, ruin, in every conceivable form. From the first they 
hated the Spaniards, as the Saracens hated the Franks. They refused 
quarter t& any one of that race, unhappy enough to fall into their hands. 
As the naval forces of Spain overcame them on the seas and bays, they 
betook themselves to innumerable inlets along the endless coasts, secreted 
their values in forest lairs, and with fleets of light proas, dashed out, to 
overwhelm a luckless craft. They seized annually an average of 5,000 
captives, whom they put to death, with inconceivable torture. Peace 
between these revoltees and Spain has really never existed. When sub- 
dued in one campaign they have migrated elsewhere, won back the con- 
vert or the indolent, and set out again on new hegivas of piracy and deso- 
lation. It was not until 1876 that Spain saw the end of organized piracy 
—though rebellion has broken out sporadically nearly every year. But 
in 1876 the captain-general was able to bring an army and navy into the 
sphere where the bulk of the Malays were gathered ; there was the pirate 
capital of the Confederacy, Tienggi. The foul nest was obliterated, and 
with imposing ceremonies the Spanish army erected a new city. For a 
breathing space the hateful spirit of the cruel race seemed extinct, 

But the Japanese have long coveted the territories of the Philippines 
for their own crowded millions ; have infiltrated crude ideas of a more 
liberal regime among the profligate chiefs, and filled the slaves with de- 
sire for freedom. Other causes have been at work to make the island a 
burden to the distracted Spanish feudatory. The hordes who have main- 
tained insurrection against Spain, have no more notion of self-rule, or any 
rule save that of anarchy, than the negroes of Central Africa. The arms 



ISLAND TRADITIONS. 155 

they battled with were supplied by Japan, and their movements guided 
by these greedy Britons of the Orient. 

Spain is often cited as incapable of colonizing, yet the vast countries 
speaking the Spanish tongue — all of the South American continent in 
fact, as well as Mexico, Cuba, Porto Rico and the Philippines are testi- 
mony that Spain has impressed her civilization — speech, religion and 
manners on more territory than any other power! Spain has not in the 
modern times colonized by extermination ! Our race has colonized the 
northern continent or the larger part of it, but we have done it by out 
rooting the aborigines, and taking possession. The British, who claim 
to be the preeminent colonizers, confuse conquest with colonizing. Where 
they go, British ascendancy is first wrung from the native by arms or craft, 
and then British armies of the needy follow. The colonizing is complete 
when the natives are made the helots of the land, and the officialism of the 
metropolitan rules the country. Yet the native of India, of Australia or 
South Africa, who can give voice to his discontent, is as bitter in his 
hatred of the superior civilized Britain, as the Philippines or Cubans are 
against Spain. 

Though traversed by the enormous fleets of the worlds commerce, the 
various subdivisions of the Philippine empire are but superficially known. 
The lands that dot the vast archipelago are buried in tradition, more or 
less fanciful ; that portion of the Spanish possessions lying between the 
main island of the Philippine group and Borneo, is generally spoken of as 
the Sulu Archipelago. The inhabitants of these lands, are believed to be 
the earliest type of the Malay. There, piracy and general predations are 
still carried on when chance offers. They are mainly a race of seamen, 
and pass much of their time in the proas known for centuries as pirate 
craft, preying upon the shipwrecked or lighter ships of Oriental commerce. 
The proa is a light, well constructed vessel, never weighing more than 
thirty tons. But so built that it can go either backward or forward, the 
skilful Malay propels it with incredible swiftness on the smaller waters 
uf these landlocked seas. 

Until the Japanese took the desperadoes in hand, the whole population 
of the Sulu Archipelago lived by piracy. The Sultan and civic Council 
claimed and received twenty five per cent, of the pirate gains, for which 
they supplied the leader's guns and proas. Not the least remunerative of 
the prizes brought in, were the crews of captured vessels, who were sent 
into the interior as slaves to the Sultan or the tribal chiefs. Since first 
known to Europeans, each island has had a ruler of its own, though the 
the various groups acknowledge sovereignty in one Sultan. It was 
9 



156 THE MALAY SULUS. 

through this potentate, that Spain made her treaties and did what was 
possible to introduce civilized ways. In certain externals, there is a 
primitive civilization. 

The tribes now live in houses modeled somewhat on the Chinese and 
Japanese edifices. They are built of bamboo and erected far above the 
ground on posts. The roofs are thatched with palm leaves and for the 
climate, no better form of shelter could be devised. Household treasures 
are placed in chests in the centre of the single room. These serve for 
beds at night curtained by light fabrics woven in the country. Chairs 
and tables have only been a recent acquisition to the interior natives, 
though the privileged or richer ranks are profuse in all the showiness of 
civilized needs. 

Strangely enough, these irreclaimable lawbreakers enjoy a certain formal 
despotism. The tribal chiefs form a great council where the Sultan 
has two votes. The land is all owned by the chiefs, and the multitude 
bears the same relation to the lord of the land that existed in Europe before 
the abolition of feudalism. The chief is the lawgiver and judge. He 
can do substantially what he pleases with the tribal property, and the 
bodies of his tenantry. Arms are carried at all times, by gentle and 
simple. The aristocrat carries a lance and a weapon called the kris, a 
curious sword in form. The arm of the multitude is the blow pipe — 
a hollow tube of the palm through which sharp darts are sent a surprising 
distance, by the breath. The main use of this extraordinary weapon is 
killing game, though it is used in war likewise; when thus used the dart 
is poisoned. 

The nobles when arrayed for affairs of social or political state, wear 
gorgeous mandarin robes of silk embroidered with gold, and satin trousers 
decorated with golden dragons. The kris is carried by all ranks. '#or a 
head dress, a red handkerchief is wound about the head like », /irban. 
The men let their hair grow long, pluck out their beards, dye tl Ay teeth 
black, and shave their eyebrows partly, so as to leave a marker crescent 
arch. The women wear pygamas of white cotton or flowered *ilk to the 
knees, and over these a petticoat, with a short jacket of colored cotton 
cloth that fits closely to set off their figures. A scarf hangs over the 
shoulders. The hair is tied up at the crown of the head. 

The chief recreation of the race is dancing. The proudest chief delights 
in efficiency in playing some instrument, generally the flute, guitar and 
sometimes the violin. Spanish dances are stepped with as much grace 
and animation as in the salons of Madrid. Gaming is a passion among 
all ranks and conditions, while as in all Moslem countries there is no ernd 



THE QUEEN OF FRUITS. 157 

to the number of wives a man may have. Conditions seem however to 
restrain all but the very rich to one. It is no unusual thing to see men 
maintaining a hundred concubines. 

The products of the Philippines embracing the entire system, cover all 
the fruits and edibles known in the tropics — from edible birds' nests to the 
doerian — -a fruit whose qualities are in strong contrast with its odor. It 
is described as so repulsive in smell that those whose nostrils are new to 
the smell, nearly faint, but once tasted, the daintiest dish of the gourmet 
bears no comparison. A traveler from the archipelago sets forth the 
eating and the effect : 

" No fruit can rival its rich flavor as of strawberries and raspberries 
mixed with violets and delicate rose leaves. Of all the products of 
nature it is the most delicious. The first mouthful is all that is needed; 
the nauseating odor is past and done forever ; years may elapse between 
the eating of the two doerian, but the disgusting stench will never again 
be perceived." The plant though now abundant in the Philippines, is 
believed to be indigenous to Sumatra. There at least, they endow it with 
magic power to call the wanderer home, for the islanders often repeat the 
proverb. " Who has eaten doerian will eat doerians." Naturalists rank 
this extraordinary dainty as the queen of fruits, the orange being con- 
sidered the king. Birds' nests, the edible delight of Oriental gournets 
are another staple of the island. 

The permanent drawback to the countries in the archipelago for 
colonizing, is the frequency of earthquakes and an enormous number of 
volcanic mountains rising all over the surface. 

It is characteristic of the indolent ineptitude of the Spaniards that all 
that is known of the Philippines even historically, comes from stranger 
sources. The French for many years have exhibited a persistent curios- 
ity about the people of the islands and the natural history of the races 
which finds expression in reports to the scientific societies. It is from 
this source that the world knows to-day what the Philippinos represent. 
The picture they give of the race, where it has come..into contact with 
the invaders, is full of a certain charm. For the^ half-natives or mixed 
groups are a mingling. of. the Creole and the educated Cubanos. They 
imitate the excesses of civilization with great readiness ; they take on the 
externals of religion and observe the pageantry with childlike delight. 
The social side of the well to-do Philippinos is full of the surprises noted 
by the observer in the Spanish possessions in the two Americas. But 
they do not receive schooling. Life is a perpetual festival, where there 
is no need for labor. But labor in any of these lands would be consid- 



158 PHILIPPINOS' PATRIOTISM. 

ered play in our more active societies. In one part of these immense pos- 
sessions only, has Spain ever attempted to allure the natives to civiliza- 
tion by showing them what civilization does for the well-being of peoples. 
Manila, the capital, is in many respects a European city. But the effect 
of the object lesson has been rather to demoralize the natives than edu- 
cate them to a sense of better things. 

Naturally, so soon as Dewey's squadron had ousted the Spaniards from 
the metropolitan city, all the conspiring factions on the various islands 
which had been used for years by the intriguing Japanese or Germans, 
saw that a time had come when the western commodity known as ' ; pa- 
triotism " could be made marketable. From island recesses, that even 
the educated never heard of, came the clamor for "independence " or a 
protectorate under some of the great powers. Yet there is neither edu- 
cation nor the habit of self-rule by tribes, as among some aboriginal 
races, make up the semblance of a primitive regime. The Spaniards have 
since time immemorial indulged the dangerous practice of buying off the 
disaffected. The islanders regard the coming of the richer peoples of the 
North American continent, as a larger market for their wares. It would 
require years and processes like those that have solved the Indian ques- 
tion in this country, to make the Philippines habitable to a civilized race. 
Even then there are climatic excesses that make a residence for septen- 
trional peoples doubtful. There are, however, residents from this coun- 
try who declare that after a trying probation, the city of Manila becomes 
a fascinating abode. It is not improbable that the pretty well authenti- 
cated stories of fabulous gold deposits may make the less torrid of the 
islands a sort of an Australia to the millions who love adventure and the 
semi-nomad life of the treasure seeker. 



■ ■,'{- 








n. 

EUROPEAN vaticinations on Spain's prowess had insensibly sunk 
into the mind of the people of the United States. Feverish as was 
the desire for something to be done, there was at the same time the pre- 
sentiment that we must taste some of the calamities we had invoked. 
We had many thousand miles of vulnerable seacoast ; we had commercial 
emporiums, within easy, even tempting striking distance of a resolute 
commander, sailing one of the majestic fleets of modern construction. An 
audacious stroke at New York or Boston, New Orleans, or Philadelphia, 
would enable Spain to pay her war debt and redeem ulterior disasters. 
No one knew exactly what our war fleets were capable of doing in action. 
They had never been tried ; the sneering estimates of foreign quid tmncs, 
who pointed out the heterogeneous nature of the crews, the obtrusive 
picture of ineptitude discovered in launching* the army, in spite of the 
decisive work done by Dewey, gave the serious minded hours of anguish. 
Could our harbors be made impregnable to the fleets whose movements 
were reported daily by cable? Were the guns we had fashioned in the 
Cabinet, as it were, equal to the prodigious strain iron and steel fleets 
would put them to? Could the formidable armada of Admiral Cervera, 
hovering at the Cape Verde islands, sail straight for the Narrows, dis- 
perse the ships stationed there, pass the half improvised forts on the head- 
lands and put the metropolis of the republic under contribution? 

Naval administrators do not seem gifted with the exuberant speech of 
their military brethren of the land forces. 

The most persistent "interviewers" for the press extracted but meagre 
confidences from that admirable corps of incomparable men charged with 
the security of our seacoast. Noiselessly, as if done in the dark, every 
accessible inlet of the immense shores of the republic were transformed 
into traps of such stupendous destructiveness, that a pinnace could not 
have entered a sheet of water included in the defence. The force and 
aptitude of the thousand cruisers, even Dewey's or Schley's victorious 
ironsides, were almost in a day concentrated prevoyantly in the waters or 
about the circumjacent headlands, that educated strategists knew were 
decisive. To the public, all this seemed empyiical. The tortuous and 
intricate system of mines, the unearthly appliances of sea and shore had 
never been practically tested, because they had not been used in modern 

(161; 



162 



A TORMENTING PROBLEM. 



warfare. It was then a tormenting problem, where we should get enough 
ships. 

Suspense, one of the numbing horrors of previous wars, found no place 
among the ordeals of the people. The best or the worst was known in 
the remotest coiners of the republic within a few hours of the event. 
Indeed, in the Manila combat, the Western world, owing to the processes 
of the planet and the arrangement of time, knew of the destruction of the 
Spanish fleet hours before its occurrence according to our laggard planet ! 
There was in the old sense of suspense, but one incident that gave the 
waiting country anxiety. 

The splendid battleship Oregon had set sail from San Francisco nearly 




UNITED STATES BATTLE SHIP OREGON. 

simultaneously with the leap into war. Her voyage was the longest at- 
tempted by a modern warship. Beside the dangers incidental to the navi- 
gation of her untried and novel type of structure, the outbreak of hos- 
tilities added the certainty of an encounter with a lurking fleet of the 
enemy. Nothing indeed betrayed so explicitly Spain's unenterprising 
methods, her languid unreadiness, than this momentous voyage of a soli- 
tary craft from the republic's farthest western harbor to the very mael- 
strom of the battle centre. At a thousand points ffom Cape Horn to the 
Bermudas, a brace of Spanish battleships might have waylaid the cherished 
ship. Cervera's fleet, for that matter, might have given Spain one brief 
taste of glory by dragging the great vessel to the harbor of Cadiz. 

Our own seamen, knowing well what they would have done, were such 
a chance offered to their enterprise, made little doubt that the Oregon, if 



THE CAPE VERDE FLEET. 163 

she ever reached her consorts, would have to run a thrilling gauntlet, but 
much more likely she would be sent to the bottom — for the men of our 
navy knew the traditions too well, to fear that her captain would give the 
Spaniards the satisfaction of capture, unless the major forces of disaster 
joined in commanding surrender. Day after day, week after week passed, 
and even among the thrilling actualities reported, the conjectural possi- 
bilities of this lonely voyager ploughing the sombre seas, took chief hold 
on the imagination of men. When she was reported at the extreme end 
of South America, the public heart thrilled as over the preliminary details 
of substantial victory. When she was reported at Bahia — scene of the 
immemorial exploits of the navy in 1812-14, it was reckoned as joyful an 
event as the conquest of a Cuban town. But as the vessel finally cast 
off from the friendly safeguards of neutral ports and waters, the public 
excitement rose. It is hardly a figure of speech to say that from the 
Cabinet of the President to the cabin of the logger, hearts beat more 
swiftly. The Cape Verde fleet was just where the ship ought to pass in 
ending her immense voyage. Would she be waylaid, turning into some 
haven and find herself beset by overwhelming odds and thus give Admiral 
Cervera plausible grounds for his incomprehensible cruising. The heart 
of the country swelled with an emotion easy to understand, when the 
welcome telegram announced the pilgrim in safety, lying tranquilly in the 
waters of the Florida coast. The incident at once revealed the impotence 
of the Spanish war administration : for no unusual danger was involved 
in attempting the capture or destruction of this, our most powerful naval 
engine. Indeed, the event at Santiago proves that had the Oregon been 
out of the way, Spain's most powerful ship, the Colon, would have stood 
more chances of escaping. 

During the six weeks preceding Congressional action, our agents had 
been busy abroad ; we had bought or engaged all the available vessels that 
could be negotiated. With ample means we had gone into the shipyards 
of the world, side by side with the agents of Spain, and whatever we 
wanted, we had got. We were conscious that the foreign owners were 
driving sharp and hard bargains. We were known to be rich beyond any 
organized society in the world probably, and we were made to pay 
fabulous prices. In six weeks we had added 500 crafts of one sort or 
another to our military marine. We had impressed the magnificent 
"flyers" of the so-called "American line," a fleet of rapid steamers 
navigating between New York and Southampton. At home, we had 
bought or chartered every craft that could navigate under steam. To 
these augmentations were added scores of very strong, swift-sailing pleasure 



164 SEARCHING FOR THE FLEET. 

yachts, such as the modern Croesi provide themselves with, for touring in 
distant seas. But of course all these couldn't be seen by the millions, in- 
deed, it is of record that the necessity put upon the administrative agents 
to make use of them incited a species of alarm. 

For the citizen who never pays heed to the details of administration 
until a crisis comes, fell into a panic at the apparent paucity of our sea 
forces, proven by this indiscriminate purchase of the private marine. 
Where, it was asked, are the fleets we have seen extolled, that we see 
millions lavished for year after year, if when the pinch comes we are 
forced to go into the market and take any sort of craft proffered, at prices 
ten fold greater than private purchasers pay? Nor was it wholly 
reassuring when it was pointed out, that even Great Britain, who makes 
her shores as much of a naval arsenal as the continental nations make 
their territories camps, would, in case of war, impress the bulk of the 
merchant marine for transports, auxiliaries and what not. For a month, 
in spite of the diversions of the press, demanding that Cuba be occupied 
within twenty-four hours, there were millions who felt secret presenti- 
ments of disaster at our very doors. Thousands of families in seaport 
cities gave up meditated summer tours, not daring to trust to the chance 
of bombardment! For the Cape Verde fleet, that mysterious, much 
vaunted armada, soon became the poignant puzzle of the amateur 
tacticians. The hard-headed coasters of the Maine beaches, the ad- 
venturous mariners from the British border to the sands of Long Island, 
felt that with the night might come the cyclone of Spanish vengeance. 
Boston with proclamations of indifference, too orotund to be real, bade 
the Spaniard come ; New York confessed that the Spaniard at her gates 
could hardly be more tormenting than the rigors put upon navigation in 
the harbor by our naval guardians. 

The search for a fleet at sea under modern conditions is one of the 
problems that daunts the stoutest admiral. Before the outbreak of the 
war, Admiral Cervera, one of the most accomplished of the ruling caste 
among the Spanish hidalgos, had set out with a half dozen of the most 
formidable of all the vessels of the Spanish fleet. The Spanish press had 
given in glowing detail the prodigious weight of shot and shell the 
batteries were capable of throwing ; the fleetness of the vessels themselves, 
but above all, the awful power of the torpedo destroyers, flanking the 
cruisers. In every press of Europe the significance and destructiveness 
of the armada was suggestively pointed out to the Washington Cabinet, 
as ample justification for deliberation in extreme measures. For days 
this menacing mystery held, or seemed to hold, our fleets in suspense. 



166 



SCHLEY'S IKON SENTRIES. 



We had encircled the ports of Cuba with a cordon of blockaders, within 
twelve hours after Congress ordered Spain to draw the sword. The 
Cape Verde fleet could make irreparable slaughter among these isolated 
monitors ! Nor was it certain that Admiral Sampson could get his ex- 
tended lines together smartly enough to give him the mastery of his 
whole force. Commodore Schley, with a fleet of the cruisers admired in 
every port of the old world, wherever seen, was held in leash at Fortress 
Monroe, on the qui vive to fly to the rescue of Philadelphia, New York 
or Boston ! 

The mystery of the Cape Verde fleet deepened, when the cable made 



^s 



\ 














LYING IN WAIT BEFORE SANTIAGO. 

known its disappearance from the Portuguese isles! Twenty -four hours 
of apprehension filled the great seaports; the unknown began to take 
shape and form ! Then as if deriding the world's expectations, the fleet 
suddenly appeared at Martinique. This extraordinary diversion verified, 
Schley made like an eagle for the southern and eastern waters of Cuba ! 
It was plain to the astute mariner that Cervera meditated reinforcing his 
blockaded brethren at Havana. With Schley's iron sentries guarding the 
Caribbean, Admiral Cervera dared not involve himself in a combat with 
the blockaders. He came to an extraordinary resolution. He took 
refuo-e in the harbor of Santiago, where under ordinary conditions a 
capable fleet like his own, could defy the world's navies combined. 
Commodore Schley, a seaman of accomplished parts, in fact a prototype 



THE SANTIAGO BATTLE. 167 

of our greatest admirals, couldn't credit his eyes, or rather his unerring 
means of information ! So far as of use to Spain, the ominous squadron 
might just as well be sealed in the Narrows at New York, under the guns 
of Fort Hamilton. The great sailor made a characteristic comment, 
"I've got Cervera bottled up and when he comes out, he can't escape 
me." It is very rare indeed that science and heroism are so amply justi- 
fied in their confidence. 

But to the country, the dynamic quality of the incident didn't appear! 
Was Cervera in the landlocked harbor of Santiago still the potentiality 
for destruction that European observers had been threatening us with ? 
Couldn't he choose his own time, say with the atrocious season of sirocco 
and blizzard, select the vessels of the republic at leisure and run them 
down one by one ! It is not unlikely that Schley or Dewey, or Evans or 
any of three score of our naval paladins would have counted on this el- 
even more intrepid enterprise, but though brave to temerity, Admiral 
Cervera was not of the fibre that conceives original undertakings. 

But Schley did not know this in the way that justifies a commander to 
ignore chances. For one drawback of the complete mastery of the art of 
war on sea or land, is the unvarying rule — to credit your adversary with 
that plan and enterprise which shall be most damaging to you. What, 
therefore, might Cervera be expected to do ! He could remain in the 
Santiago "bottle," and by merely lying still, compel the most effective of 
our squadrons to linger on a dangerous coast en vedette, thus depriving 
our fleets of a decisive part of the effective force. Or, he could bide his 
time, watch for the torrential season, dart out in force, and by surprise 
overcome each of our ships in detail. Or, it might be that ulterior plans 
had been made providing for the coming of Camara's fleet, vaguely sup- 
posed to be made up of some of the most invulnerable of the latest built 
ironclads. In any event, the prospect before Schley, was fatal to the re- 
sults expected both by the Washington council and the over-stimulated 
anticipations of the impatient. The country had that most dangerous of 
all diseases, a febrile craving for dramatic, climacteric episodes. Victori- 
ous, if humanly possible — but in any event, the unexpected, the ordeal of 
the human. For at best, that is the spirit of war; the diseased appetite 
for that feast of the flesh — that we do not call cannibalism, where it is the 
maw of the cannon, we gorge — fed with bodies of our sons and brothers 
— our firstborn and our best loved. 

A widely read European Review struck the ruling note of the spirit 
that actuates the modern when war is going on ; the "the opera-box view." 
This is precisely what went on during the fateful interval between the 



j gg CERVERA'S PLANS. 

ultimatum of Congress and the prayer of Spain to be permitted to bind 
up her gashes in peace. Dewey gave the world one spectacle, dazzling— 
radiant with the colors the military historian loves to embalm. He dis- 
concerted calculations; he secured a mise en scene of incomparable splen- 
dor in the tropic glories of an almost unknown theatre ; he wrought with 
such decision, struck with such soreness of calculation that even the 
friendly critic was deprived of the qualification that assuages the envy 
of the mediocre. A youth, fresh from the lamp, gave the world its next 
spectacle. 

A youth fresh from the lamp? I might have said a youth with the 
lamp of Aladdin, so strangely daring, so sublimely devoted was the deed 
he set out to do. It is proverbial with the sentimental philosophers that 
ail the world loves a lover. What is really meant is a hero ! The country, 
the world, became enamored of a modest young sailor before the defences 
of Santiago. Admiral Cervera's " bottling," as Commodore Schley humor- 
ously put it, borrowing General Grant's caustic characterization of Gen- 
eral Butler's luckless adventure at Bermuda Hundreds in 1864, was vari- 
ously regarded by the critical. In Europe the bottling was saluted with 
derision. Next to destroying Schley's squadron, it was contended that 
the Spanish Admiral had neutralized him. He was forced to hover about 
the mouth of the harbor, never venturing too near, lest the missiles of 
Mono should deplete his ships. It was Cervera's mission to defend 
Cuban soil. This he was doing, even were he unable to meet and beat 
the Federal fleets on equal terms. Whereas, Schley was held in the un- 
comfortable open sea, his powerful ships useless in the general plan of 
campaign. He dared not attempt the storming of the fleets and the bat- 
teries, supplemented by mines. Something of this conviction began to 
dampen the ardor of our home strategists, when the land was thrilled by 
a deed of daring, which though perfectly in keeping with the traditions 
of our navy, nevertheless struck public attention as an almost super- 
natural order of adventure. 

Among the subordinate officers of the fleet, there was a young North Caro- 
linian, who had been remarkable for studious application in the academy 
at Annapolis. This youth, Richmond P. Hobson, had gone through the 
prescribed billets assigned the bright and capable in our great naval and 
war schools. He had supplemented his Annapolis training by a course 
in France, and like nearly all the marked men of these two nurseries of 
greatness, he had continued his investigations during his active career. 
This young man, knowing the value of the fleet for other operations, per- 
fectly familiar with the narrow chaunel that gave security to the enemy's 




Lieutenant Richmond P. Hobson. 



Ensign Joseph W. Powell. 




Lieutenant Victor Blue. 



Ensign Worth Bagley. 



IIOBSON'S CALCULATIONS. 171 

squadron, devised a means of locking Cervera in his asylum and freeing 
Schley's ships for other enterprises. He proposed to run a huge vessel 
into the narrow mouth of the harbor, under the guns of Mono Castle, 
and there sink her. As a rule, in forlorn hopes and deeds of desperation, 
it is the dare devil spirit of chance that rules. But Hobson made a mathe- 
matical calculation of the problems involved. 

Poe's fantastic divining in his embryonic, scientific formula of ro- 
mance, invents nothing so thrillingly minute as the plan of operations 
prefigured by the young man on the eve of the undertaking. 

"I shall go right into the harbor until about 400 yards past the Estrella 
battery, which is behind Mono Castle. I do not think they can sink me 
before I reach somewhere near that point. The Merrimac has 7,000 tons 
buoyancy, and I shall keep her full speed ahead. She can make about 
ten knots. When the narrowest part of the channel is reached I shall 
put her helm hard aport, stop the engines, drop the anchors, open the sea 
connections, touch off the torpedoes, and leave the Merrimac a wreck, 
lying athwart the channel, which is not as broad as the Merrimac is long. 

"There are eight ten-inch improvised torpedoes below the water line 
on the Merrimac's port side. They are placed on her side against the 
bulkheads and vital spots, connected with each other by a wire under the 
ship's keel. Each torpedo contains eighty-two pounds of gunpowder. 
Each torpedo is also connected with the bridge, and they should do their 
work in a minute, and it will be quick work even if done in a minute and 
a quarter. 

"On deck there will be four men and myself. In the engine-room 
there will be two other men. This is the total crew, and all of us will be 
in our underclothing, with revolvers and ammunition in water-tight pack- 
ing strapped around our waists. Forward, there will be a man on deck, 
and around his waist will be a line, the other end of the line being made 
fast to the bridge, where I shall stand. By that man's side will be an axe. 
When I stop the engines I shall jerk this cord, and he will thus get the 
signal to cut the lashing, which will be holding the forward anchor. He 
will then jump overboard and swim to the four-oared dinghy, which we 
shall tow astern. The dinghy is full of life buoys and is unsinkable. In 
it are rifles. It is to be held by two ropes, one made fast at her bow and 
one at her stern. The first man to reach her will haul in the tow line 
and pull the dinghy out to starboard. The next to leave the ship are the 
rest of the crew. The quartermaster at the wheel will not leave until 
after having put it hard aport and lashed it so. He will then jump over- 
board. 



172 A FEASIBLE PLAN. 

"Down below, the man at the reversing gear will stop the engines, 
scramble np on deck, and get over the side as quickly as possible. The 
man in the engine-room will break open the sea connections with a sledge 
hammer, and will follow his leader into the water. This last step insures 
the sinking of the Merrimac, whether the torpedoes work or not. By 
this time I calculate the six men will be in the dinghy and the Merrimac 
will have swung athwart the channel, to the full length of her 300 yards 
of cable, which will have been paid out before the anchors were cut loose. 
Then all that is left for me is to touch the button. I shall stand on the 
starboard side of the bridge. The explosion will throw the Merrimac on 
her starboard side. Nothing on this side of New York City will be able 
to raise her after that." 

" And you expect to come out of this alive?" 

"Ah! that is another thing. I suppose the Estrella battery will fire 
down on us a bit, but the ships will throw their searchlights in the gun- 
ners' faces and they won't see much of us. Then, if we are torpedoed 
we should even then be able to make the desired position in the channel. 
It won't be so easy to hit us, and I think the men should be able to swir 
to the dinghy. I may jump before I am blown up, but I don't see tk 
it makes much difference what I do. I have a fair chance of life eithei 
way. If our dinghy ge + ,s shot to pieces, we shall then try to swim for 
the beach right under Morro Castle. We shall keep together at all haz 
aids. Then we may be able to make our way alongside and perhaps get 
back to the ship. We shall fight the sentries or a squad until the last, 
and we shall only surrender to overwhelming numbers, and our surrender 
will only take place as a last and almost uncontemplated emergency." 

His plan then was feasible at a glance, but it involved absolutely cer- 
tain death either by drowning, dynamite, or both from the doomed vessel 
and the rain of metal from the shore. All this Hobson had counted on, 
but he argued simply, the end to be attained makes the consequences of 
no moment. He was taken at his word and given official sanction to go 
to his death. He selected a large steamer, such as we see faring to and 
from other countries, or along the coast, the Merrimac bought by the 
navy department to carry coal. 

Details of men were at work denuding the fated Merrimac. The sun 
set, and a moon of pallid intensity illuminated the misty mountain plateaus, 
circumvallating the harbor and the distant city of Santiago. A scene of 
lurid magnificence arrested the admiration of the masses on the fleet: 
nature seemed in thrilling rivalry, for the thunder broke in volleyed peals, 
not unlike the broadsides from fort and fleet. But the sacrificial ship was 



POWELL'S DARING MISSION. 173 

«ot ready until long after the hour set; it was breaking into sunrise, thus 
imperiling even the slender chance that was hoped from darkness. 
Hobson hurried portward, however, and was on the verge of the line of 
Hre, when Sampson, distrusting success in daylight, ordered the operation 
to wait. Hobson sent an urgent plea to be permitted to go on, but the 
Admiral wisely forbade. 

The next morning, at the chosen hour — half-after two, the enterprise 
was undertaken again and carried out to the letter of the inventor. The 
Merrimac was conducted to the entrance by a crew of forty men, who, at 
Hobson's signal, when the ship slowed, disembarked in small boats, and 
returned to the fleet, where they found the bluejackets all awake and 
straining their eyes toward the fated craft. Beside the main adventure, 
there was a secondary, involving hardly less peril. Midshipman Powell, 
on a small launch, with a volunteer crew, accompanied the Merrimac for 
the purpose of scouring the waters under the Spanish works to pick up 
any of the wounded who might escape the wreckage of the doomed vessel 
when the torpedoes had done their work. This mission was itself daring 
to recklessness, for one shot, one fragment from the thousand projectiles 
directed at the Merrimac, would have torn the frail craft to atoms and 
left the men in the shark-infested waters, pre}' to death by drowning, by 
shell, or by the ravening jaws of the man-eaters. The launch, faithful to 
its consign, hovered in the waters of the bay until all chance of the escape 
of Hobson or his comrades was plainly hopeless. 

The channel narrows to 200 feet just within the circle of fire, of which 
Morro Castle is the central and dominating work. To make the vessel 
an obstruction, it would be necessary to pass the withering hail of the 
Morro, and from other fortresses quite as deadly and then turn the ship 
crosswise, or with her head toward the Morro or vice versa. The Merri- 
mac was emptied of all her lading, perforated for the insertion of a net 
work of dynamite bombs, capable of blowing her bottom to fragments — 
making the hulk itself a peril for its navigators even in calm seas and 
peaceful surroundings. 

When the contemplated audacity was made known to the fleet and 
volunteers called for, it seemed as if every man stood ready to engage in 
what every one knew meant certain death. The heart of the country ex- 
ulted, quite as rapturously over the scene on the fleet, where the embar- 
rassed admiral was compelled to choose seven men out of the eager mass, 
as over the heroic action. Deeds of high emprise mark the records of all 
nations and peoples, but there is no record in historj 7 which shows the 
rank and file of a squadron eager to take the billet of certain death. Of 



174 



THE DEVOTED SEVEN. 



course, in a sense, all men under the colors take the same risk, when they 
take the oath of service, but there is even in the demoniac fury and car- 
nage of the set battle an element of chance. A man always feels that he^ 
may escape : Hobson and his seven knew that there were one thousand 
chances to one against escape. 




FRANCIS KEU-Y 



Randolph 



CLAU6EN 



HOBSON AND HIS CREW. 



From the moment official sanction consecrated the seven, the picture is 
pathetically stirring. There was none of the hectic gayety we some- 
times see in daring enterprises, where the stimulant of the battle supple- 



THE MERRIMAC'S SUICIDE. 176 

ments the trembling nerves. Hobson and his seven addressed them- 
selves to the commonplace concerns of navigating, placing the destroyer 
and lessening the scope of accident, with the sustained purpose and sober 
bearing of men engaged in daily monotony. 

The night had worn dawnward, in brooding repose: the southern cross 
sparkled in luminous glory over the tranquil waters, and threw the vague 
mountain buttresses in forms of gigantic sentries ; the vague outlines of 
Morro rose on the brow of the headland like a vast lantern, lighting the 
headland and the shadowed waters. The pilot assigned the task of find- 
ing the fissure that serves as the entrance of the bay, lost the channel, the 
Merrimac, when every moment was of priceless value, lost a half hour in 
groping for the way! The Merrimac was soon detected by the forts, a 
rain of projectiles fell upon her deck, for every inch of the way had 
been, of course, measured by the artillerists of the forts. Incredible 
to say, none of the hurtling masses of projectiles did vital destruction. 
The seven navigators stretched prone on deck were miraculously pre- 
served from even a splinter. When, at the point selected, Hobson 
strove to anchor, he found that the iron hail had destroyed one of the 
decisive resources. The anchor chains were shot away and he was 
forced to sink the vessel lengthwise in the channel instead of crosswise. 
All was not lost, however; the heroic endeavor was not wholly vain, the 
hulk, even end for end, in the narrow way, would make the egress of 
Cervera's enormous ships difficult. The electric lines were set going and 
the Merrimac sunk by the prearranged machinery, quite as if Hobson and 
his aids were carrying out a job in any of the peaceful preserves of the 
navy. 

The undertaking was begun in that hour in the twenty-four when the vital 
energies are at the ebb, the opening dawn, neither night nor day. The 
time when the aged die and the afflicted cease to rally, the time made 
famous by Napoleon's saying that few men have "two o'clock in the 
morning courage." Hobson's comrades record it, that even with the ship 
on her course, the enterprise might have come to disaster, that is failed 
of its moral effect, had Hobson lost for a moment that indescribable 
domination of external difficulties which speaks the master mind. The 
torrent of missiles came so thick that the men dared not rise on the deck. 
Hobson in pursuit of his end arose to carry out a detail. The men im- 
plored him to remain quiescent, urging that if anything happened to him, 
they would be headless, helpless. To their plea he yielded and remained 
under such cover as the deck afforded. 

Every eye on the fleet followed the spectral vessel as she was driven 
10 



176 WATCHING THE UNDERTAKING. 

into the vortex of danger ; not a man slept on the fleet the rest of that 
night, so absorbing was the interest of the desperate undertaking. Al- 
most to the cliff, the outlines of the Merrimac could be dimly discerned 
by the watchers ; the tensity of feeling became fairly maddening, when 
there was no longer a trace — for now the devoted crew were face to face, 
hand to hand, with the momentous purpose. It was almost a relief, when 
from the blackness and void of the dim mass of coast, the lightning flash 
of a cannon was seen and then the thundering report was heard. The 
shot was seen to splash seaward from the Merrimac, passing over her. 
The firing became general, quickening into fierceness and rapidity from 
the batteries inside on the left of the harbor, from which it was argued 
that Hobson had attained the point he set out to reach. The flashes and 
reports were of rapid fire guns. For fifteen minutes this fusillade was 
kept up. Then the fire slackened, and by 3:30 had almost ceased. A 
close watch was kept by the fleet on the mouth of the harbor, in order to 
pick up the steam launch. The sleepless eyes that had watched during 
the crisis, saw Ensign Powell's little craft crossing and recrossing the 
mouth of the channel, scrutinizing the waves for a sign of the Hobson 
crew. The guns of the forts were turned upon the forlorn watcher but 
until the young ensign made up his mind that there was no hope of res- 
cue, he maintained his dangerous quest with unimpaired tranquillity. 
When the young officer reported to the commander of the Texas, that 
none of the men had come from the harbor, the word went through the 
fleet like an electric message and the seven were given up for dead. 
Powell had performed a deed requiring nearly all the courage of the 
Merrimac crew. He had followed his comrade in danger and glory, 
Hobson — to the very jaws of death ; waited under the guns of the battery 
subject all the time to instant destruction. It was Powell indeed, who 
rescued the Merrimac from her false direction, and led her to the channel. 
From the launch's point of observation the movements of the Merrimac 
could be seen until she came to a halt and tried to turn in the channel, 
preparatory to sinking. From two in the morning until late in the after- 
noon of that day, the crews of Sampson's fleet felt that they had wit- 
nessed one of the sublime deeds of devotion that live in the minds of 
men, Hobson and his mates were martyrs, but there was not a man on 
the ships who would not have volunteered to do the same deed, then and 
there. Toward three o'clock in the afternoon a flag of truce was distin- 
guishable emerging from the harbor. Were the Spaniards bringing the 
bodies of the dead, or were they taking advantage of the accident to get 
a sight of the fleet? The flag was borne by a swift tug which made for 



ADMIRAL CERVERA'S COMPLIMENTS. 177 

the admiral's ship. The officer in charge, Captain Ovidedo, presented 
himself to Sampson in tlie glittering uniform of his nation. He was re- 
ceived with the honors due his rank and the patiently awaited message 
was delivered. Admiral Cervera presented his compliments to Admiral 
Sampson, for the purpose of informing him that the heroes who had en- 
tered the harbor of Santiago were safe, and not one of them severely in- 
jured. Signals apprised the fleet almost as soon as the momentous 
words were spoken. The sailors were thunderstruck. From that mo- 
ment it became a conviction in the mind of every man serving under the 
flag, that Spanish guns could not harm the men protected by its folds. 
To describe the tumults of exultant 303^ would exhaust the epithets of 
rapture. Discipline alone kept the fleet decorously to the routine of the 
hour. 

The first hint of this quaintly daring exploit, methodic in its madness 
— as Hobson's humorously matter of fact narrative shows, it filled the 
country with a rapture, that in a sense, equalled, if it did not eclipse the 
grateful exhilaration Dewey's grandiose victory aroused. For the desper- 
ation of the undertaking confirmed the assurance that our sons and broth- 
ers were of the same simple, self confident fibre of the fathers, the de- 
voted young heroes, who like Bainbridge, Somers, Decatur, Cushing, held 
life of value, only as it was of use to the country's cause. Our apparent 
dedication to sordid ends, our incomprehensible abdication to demagogues 
in politics and empyrics in most that makes to the solidity of societies — 
had not reached the moral marrow; our } r ouths were still indoctrinated 
with the stirring old simplicities of manliness, zeal, courage ; that pecul- 
iar virtue, which is all virtue, really, loyalty to self respect and self- 
control, coming from the idealization of the fathers. It was an im- 
mensely proud, and justly proud, seventy millions that followed with fra- 
ternal heart throbs the denoument of Hobson's miraculous venture. 
Madrid for a moment tasted the cup that seems to hold the draught of 
victory. <l A large Yankee craft, attempting to enter Santiago harbor, 
was sunk under the walls of Morro." For hours this was all we knew; 
"Admiral Sampson had run a collier into the channel and sunk it there." 
No episode was ever read with more delight, no event was ever waited 
with more poignant impatience, than the fate of the devoted leader and 
crew. Dewey's laconic word that he had won the combat at Manila, 
hardly waked more exultation than the assurance that Hobson and his 
seven had been rescued from the water by the Spanish Admiral himself 
— Cervera, and treated with the chivalrous consideration that the brave 
feel for the bravq. Indeed, when the story was told that the Spanish 



178 



HOBSON'S LIBERATION. 



Admiral, comprehending the state of the public mind, had sent out a flag 
to the fleet to reassure Hobson's commander, the public mind underwent 
a revulsion — the effects of which Spain had cause to welcome every day 
thereafter. If Admiral Cervera were so chivalrously responsive to the 
amenities of civilized warfare, how could the Spanish people be the blood 
thirsty, inveterate, cruel demons, the Cuban "patriots" had been painting 
them for years? When Hobson's narrative of his faring in Spanish hands 
was told, Admiral Cervera was only second in public reverence to the 




tk 






hobson's reception after his exchange. 

young hero, himself. Naturally, he was treated as a prisoner of war, but 
the rigors of confinement were ameliorated as far as it was in the power 
of the Spanish to do. On the proposal of Sampson to make an immediate 
exchange, the Spanish Admiral at once assented, but the military com- 



THE ESSENCE OF HEROISM. 181 

mander, very properly, objected, as Hobson's keen eye had detected the 
condition of Santiago, and had he returned at once to our fleet, we should 
have been saved the glorious sacrifices of the Shafter expedition. For a 
month's delay would have compelled the starved Spaniards to surrender 
— unable to fire a shot. This, when represented to the Madrid govern- 
ment, delayed Hobson's liberation until the fate of the city was decided. 
His return to our lines, on the surrender of Santiago, was the signal for 
renewed acclamations — in the army, the fleet, in the country — this too, in 
spite of the proof that his hardihood had been practically wasted, for 
when Cervera was ready to quit the harbor, the hulk of the Merrimac 
was no impediment. The country had seen with a clear eye, and distin- 
guished the essence of heroism in the conduct, the purpose and the be- 
havior of the men, who so greatly dared, for an uncertain gain, while 
death itself seemed inevitably certain. When Admiral Cervera — himself 
a prisoner, was visited by his whilom captive, the country looked on with 
a sympathy, not far from the tenderness of tears. 

Science has been so persistively displacing poesy — romance — the seed 
and appetent root of chivalry, that it had begun to be supposed that the 
old-time deeds of mingled abnegation and daring were no longer part of 
war. And indeed, the bleak hulk of the collier, the uncanny appliances 
of the demolition, the repulsive practicalities, preparation, all seemed to 
embody an episode far from the desperado deeds of knights and warriors 
of the old time — plumed and cuirassed richly, in doublets of steel, corslets 
and what not, that the fancy conjures when heroism is in question ! Yet, 
the Merrimac adventure elated the country beyond any comparison, with 
more of sentimental delight than any deed of daring recorded in our 
history. 

History is not fulfilling its function when it does not give the atmos- 
phere of events, as well as their outline and effect. No battle gained or 
lost could have created a more demonstrative outbreak than the first des- 
patches — giving the bald fact that Hobson and his seven had dared, had 
succeeded, but had died in the doing! It was not until the chivalrous 
instinct of the brave, recognizing the splendor of the deed — Cervera's 
assurances to his antagonist, that the man and his crew were safe, that 
the country breathed freely. 

Many a fiction will in future embalm this glowing picture of manli- 
ness, but even the pen of Dumas cannot add to the heroic outline the 
thrillingly romantic evolution from inception to climax — and extraordi- 
narily enough, from climax to the unexpected ending. Hobson was taken 
to the hearts of the whole people. Inquiry, on the publication of his per- 



182 A METROPOLITAN AUDIENCE. 

sonality, revealed the possibility that his homestead in Alabama was 
likely to pass from the ownership of his aged parents. At once the hands 
oi millions were held out, ready to pay the incumbrance! When on the 
fall of Santiago, the young mariner in the ordinary routine of duty found 
himself in New York, he was blockaded in the streets, beleaguered in 
public places — found himself, in fact, the tenderly adored hero of women, 
the delight of men. His conduct under this trying ordeal confirmed all 
that was said of him ; all that was believed of him— for he accepted these 
testimonials, with a surprise not unmingled with disapproval, demonstrat- 
ing solidity and worth. At a public entertainment, organized by the 
Red Cross Society to raise funds for the care of the wounded, Hobson 
was prevailed upon to narrate something of his version of the sinking of 
the Merrimac. No audience ever assembled in the metropolis in such 
numbers, or marked its pleasure so impulsively, as when the abashed 
young sailor stood up to speak. His portrayal of the scene was confined 
exclusively to a glorification of the immeasurable devotion of the plain 
sailor — the real winner of the naval victories. Such words cannot be 
repeated too often ; they deserve every form that permanence can give 
them. Speaking of the plan of operations Hobson confides to his 
audience : 

"The order was that no man should pay attention to the fire of the 
enemy. He was not even to look back over his shoulder to see where the 
fire was coming from. It was also understood that if any man was 
wounded, he should pay no attention to his wound nor call the attention 
of anybody else to it, but should place himself in a sitting, kneeling or 
any other posture that he could, so that when the signal came he could 
perform the simple duty assigned him. And they carried out their in- 
structions to the letter. They remained there on that ship, each man at 
his post, until their duty was performed. They laid there until five of 
the seven torpedoes had been shot away by the enemy's fire. The steer- 
ing gear also had been shot away. The projectiles from the enemy's 
guns were coming so fast, that it seemed as though they came more in a 
stream than singly, yet those Jackies laid there to do their duty as in- 
structed, and never flinched. Again, when the work was done and the 
crew assembled at the appointed place and the Merrimac began to sink 
under them, slowly, because only two of the seven torpedoes that were 
to sink us had been fired ; when for ten minutes that crew of Jackies lay 
there on their faces at the rendezvous and the projectiles were exploding 
just in front of them, the simple word was given that no man should 
move until further orders. If there ever was a time and condition when 



ON THE DECK OF THE MERRIMAC. 183 

the principle of every man taking care of himself was justifiable, when 
men would have been excused for going overboard — going anywhere, so 
long as they got away from where they were — it was on board the Merri- 
mac those ten minutes. But not a man stirred. They waited for the 
order, feeling all the time the ship sinking beneath them and seeing the 
shells exploding all around them. A few minutes later, when the same 
group of Jackies was in the water, clinging with their heads just above 
water to the rounded corners of the catamaran, and the enemy's picket 
boats came scouring about with their lanterns, to find something living — 
then again the impulse was just as strong and as natural to get away 
from those picket boats and to strike out for the shore. But the simple 
word was given that no man should move until further orders. There, 
clinging to that catamaran, for nearly an hour, those men remained, every 
one of them without a murmur. When that afternoon — the same after- 
noon as the sinking — by command of the gallant commander-in chief of 
the Spanish fleet, Admiral Cervera, the personal effects of that crew of 
Jackies were brought off from the ship to the prison, in the boat that was 
sent to Admiral Sampson to tell of our safety, one of the men was al- 
lowed to come over to me, while the distribution of our effects was being 
made. This man. who was the spokesman for all the rest said, after re- 
ferring to what they had just been through: ' We would do it over again 
to night, sir.' 

" The next day, when, for all those sailors vaguely felt that the remnants 
of the inquisition might be applied to get information from the prisoners, 
those Jackies had another test. A Spanish major, backed by several 
soldiers, began to question them. As he did so the Spanish soldiers 
made significant signs like this, (Hobson drew his hand across his throat). 
The Jackies simply laughed at them. When the Spanish major urged 
the question as to the object of bringing the Merrimac in the way we did, 
George Charette, acting as spokesman replied : ' In the United States 
Navy, sir, it is not the custom for the seamen to know or to inquire the 
object of his superior officer.' 

"I want to go to Annapolis before I leave the country and pay my 
respects to Admiral Cervera. For him I want to say that the American 
public may never know just how much they owe to him for the way he 
treated and protected the prisoners at Santiago. He is a grand old man, 
I tell you, and I will never forget him for his kindness to me. When I 
came here I sent him a telegram, telling him that when I had the chance 
I would thank him in person. I want to take that chance now." 



184 HOLDING ON FOR LIFE. 

No grace of phrase or eloquence of metaphor could be comparable to 
the tale of the adventure as told by Hobson himself: 

"It was dark when we started in toward the strait, and it was darker 
when w^ got the ship into position. We knew that we were taking des- 
perate chances, and in order to be unencumbered when we got into the 
water, we stripped down to our underclothing. The ship gave a heave, 
when the charges exploded, and as she sank with a lurch at the bow, we 
got over her sides. That we got into the water is nearly all we know of 
what happened in that rather brief period. Some sprang over the ship's 
side, but more than one of us was thrown over the rail, by the shock and 
the lurching of the ship. It was our plan to escape on a catamaran float 
which lay on the roof of the midship house. One of the greatest dan- 
gers of the thing was that of being caught in the suction made by the 
ship as she went down, so we tied the float to the taffrail, giving it slack 
enough, as we thought, to let it float loose after the ship had settled in 
her resting place. I swam away from the ship as soon as I struck the 
water, but I could feel the eddies drawing me backward in spite of all I 
could do. That did not last very long, however, and, as soon as I felt the 
tugging ease, I turned and struck out for the float, which I could see 
dimly bobbing up and down over the sunken hull. The Merrimac's masts 
were plainly visible, and I could see the heads of my seven men as they 
followed my example and made for the float also. We had expected, 
of course, that the Spaniards would investigate the wreck, but we had no 
idea that they would be at it so quickly as they were. Before we could 
get to the float, several row boats and launches came around the bluff 
from inside the harbor. They had officers on board and armed marines as 
well, and they searched that passage rowing backward and forward until 
the next morning. It was only by good luck that we got to the float at 
all, for they were upon us so quickly that we had barely concealed our- 
selves when a boat with quite a large party on board was right beside us. 
Unfortunately we thought then, but it turned out afterward that nothing 
more fortunate than that could have happened for us, the rope with 
which we had secured the float to the ship was too short to allow it to 
swing free, and when we reached it we found that one of the pontoons 
was entirely out of the water, and the other one submerged. Had the 
raft lain flat on the water we could not have got under it, and would have 
had to climb up on it, to be an excellent target for the first party of 
marines that arrived. As it was, we could get upon the raft and by put- 
ting our hands through the crevices between the slats which formed its 
deck, we could hold our heads out of water, and still be unseen. That is 



WATCHING THE SPANISH BOATS. 185 

what we did, and all night long we stayed there, with our noses and 
mouths barely out of water. None of us expected to get out of the 
affair alive, but luckily the Spaniards did not think of the apparently 
damaged, half sunken raft floating about beside the wreck. They came 
within a cable's length at intervals of only a few minutes all night. We 
could hear their words distinctly, and even in the darkness could distin- 
guish an occasional glint of light on the rifle barrels of the marines and 
on the lace of the officer's uniforms. We were afraid to speak above a 
whisper, and for a good while, in fact, whenever they were near us, we 
breathed as easily as we could. I ordered my men not to speak unless to 
address me and with one exception they obeyed. After we had been 
there an hour or two the water which we found rather warm at first, be- 
gan to get cold, and my fingers ached where the wood was pressing into 
them. The clouds which were running before a pretty stiff breeze when 
we went in, blew over, and then by the starlight we could see the boats 
when they came out of the shadows of the cliffs on either side, and even 
when we could not see them we knew that they were still near, because 
we could hear very plainly the splash of the oars and the grinding of the 
oar locks. Our teeth began to chatter before very long, and I was in 
constant fear that the Spaniards would hear us when they came close. 
It was so still then that the chattering sound seemed to us as loud as a 
hammer, but the Spaniard's ears were not sharp enough to hear it. We 
could hear sounds from the shore almost as distinctly as if we had been 
there, we were so close to the surface of the water, which is an excellent 
conductor, and the voices of the men in the boats sounded as clear as a 
bell. 

"My men tried to keep their teeth still but it w r as hard work, and not 
attended with any great success at the best. We all knew that we would 
be shot if discovered by an ordinary seaman or a marine, and I ordered 
my men not to stir as the boats having officers on board kept well in the 
distance. One of my men disobeyed my orders and started to swim 
ashore, and I had to call him back. He obeyed at once, but my voice 
seemed to create some commotion among the boats, and several of them 
appeared close beside us before the disturbance in the water made by the 
man swimming had disappeared. We thought it was all up with us then, 
but the boats went away into the shadows again. There was much spec- 
ulation among the Spaniards as to what the ship was and what we in- 
tended to do next. I could understand many of the words, and gathered 
from what I heard, that the officers had taken in the situation at once, 
but were astounded at the audacity of the thing. The boats, I also 



186 YOU ARE WELCOME. 

learned were from the fleet, and I felt better because I bad more faith in 
a Spanish sailor than I had in a Spanish soldier. When daylight came a 
steam launch full of officers and marines came out from behind the cliff 
that hid the fleet and harbor and advanced toward us. All the men on 
board were looking curiously in our direction. They did not see us. 
Knowing that some one of rank must be on board, I waited until the 
launch was quite close and hailed her. My voice produced the utmost 
consternation on board. Every one sprang up, the marines crowded to 
the bow and the launch's engines were reversed. She not only stopped 
but she backed off until nearly a quarter of a mile away, where she 
stayed. The marines stood ready to fire at the word of command, when 
we clambered out from under the float. There were ten of the marines 
and they would have fired in a moment had they not been restrained. I 
swam toward the launch and then she started toward me. I called out 
in Spanish: 'Is there an officer on board ? ' An officer answered in the 
affirmative, and then I shouted in Spanish again: 'I have seven men to 
surrender.' I continued swimming, and when I reached the side of the 
launch, I was seized and pulled out of the water. As I looked up, when 
they were dragging me into the launch I saw that it was Admiral Cervera 
himself, who had hold of me. He looked at me rather dubiously at first, 
because I had been down in the engine room of the Merrimac, where I 
got covered with oil, and that with the soot and coal dust, made my ap- 
pearance most disreputable. J had put on my officer's belt before sink- 
ing the Merrimac, as a means of identification, no matter what happened 
to me, and when I pointed to it in the launch the admiral understood and 
seemed satisfied. The first words he said to me when he learned who I 
was, were, 'bleu venido sea usted,' which means you are welcome. My 
treatment by the naval officers, and that of my men also, was courteous 
all the time that I was a prisoner. They heard my story, as much of it 
as I could tell, but sought to learn nothing more. My men were rescued 
from the float and taken to the shore and we were all placed in a cell in 
Morro Castle. I asked permission to send a note to Admiral Sampson 
and wrote it, but when Admiral Cervera learned of it, he said that Gem 
eral Linares would not permit me to send it. The admiral seemed greatly 
worried, but it was not until a day or two later that I learned what was 
on his mind. That same day he said he would send a boat to the fleet 
to get clothes for us, and that the men who went in the boat could tell 
Admiral Sampson that we were safe. I learned later that General 
Linares was inclined to be ugly, and that Admiral Cervera wished to get 
word to our fleet, as soon as possible, that we were safe, knowing then 



WATCHING THE BOMBARDMENT. 187 

that General Linares would know that the fleet knew it, and he would 
not dare to harm us. 

" When we were first placed in Morro. the solid doors to our cells were 
kept closed for an hour or two, but when we objected to that, the admiral 
ordered that they be thrown open. Then we had a view of Santiago 
harbor, the city and the Spanish fleet. All the officers of the army and 
fleet called on us that day, and their treatment of us was most consid- 
erate and courteous. General Linares did not call, but sent word that as 
all the others had called, he thought that a visit from him was not in- 
cluded in his duties. 1 do not know what he meant by that, but am sure 
we did not owe our safety to him. We were still in Morro Castle when 
Admiral Sampson's fleet bombarded Santiago. The windows in the side 
of our cell opened west across the harbor entrance, and we could hear 
and see the shells as they struck. We knew that we would not be fired 
upon as word had gone out as to where we were, so we sat at the windows 
and watched the shells. Each one sung a different tune as it went by. 
The smaller shells moaned or screeched as they passed, but the thirteen- 
inch shells left a sound behind them like that of a sudden and continued 
smashing of a huge pane of glass. The crackling was sharp and metal- 
lic, something like sharp thunder without the roar, and the sound con- 
tinued but decreased after the shell had gone. In many cases the shells 
struck projecting points of rock, and ricochetting, spun end over end 
across the hills. The sound they made as they struck again and again 
was like the short sharp puff of a locomotive starting with a heavy train. 
We were in Morro Castle four days and only once did I feel alarmed. 
The day before we were taken into the city of Santiago, I saw a small 
boat start from the harbor with a flag of truce up. When I asked one of 
the sentries what it meant I was told that the boat had gone out to tell 
our fleet that my men and I had already been taken into the city. Then 
I feared that Morro would be bombarded at once, and believed it a scheme 
got up by General Linares to end us. We were taken to the city the 
next day, and were safe anyway, then. In the city we were treated with 
the same consideration by the naval officers, with the exception of Gen- 
eral Linares, which we got on the day of our capture. I believe we owe 
to Admiral Cervera our exchange, and a great deal more in the way of 
good treatment that we would not otherwise have received. General 
Linares had no good blood for us, nor did the soldiers and the marines, 
who would have shot us on sight the night that we went into the harbor. 
Sharks? No, we did not have time to think of them that night," said 
Lieutenant Hobson, in reply to one of his listeners. " We saw a great 



188 



IN THE WATER. 



many things though, and went through a great many experiences. When 
we started out from the fleet I tied to my belt a flask of medicated water. 
supplied to me by the ship's surgeon. All the way the flask went from 
hand to hand. Once I felt my pulse to see if I was frightened, but to my 
surprise I found it normal. Later, we forgot all about it, and when we 
got into the water, there was no need for the flask. 




THE STUFF OUK NAVY IS MADE OF. 
(Eosigu Gillis capturing a floating torpedo.) 



/ 





m. 

WITH the mercurial inconsequence of our race, made up of a not 
wholly coordinated mingling of all races, the eve of our national 
anniversary closed with the heaven of hope hung in black. Santiago 
had become a nightmare. The army so rashly planted before its walls 
could neither advance nor retreat. It was in the awkward fix so aptly 
described by President Lincoln, when Hooker proposed a movement on 
Fredericksburg — M like a bull caught in a fence which could neither kick 
nor gore, use neither horns nor heels." General Shatter's cry of despair 
was regarded as of deeper interest than the disheartened commander 
really meant to convey. He had given way to the same boyish impulse 
which had carried the Rough Riders beyond prudent precaution and he 
was now conscious of his peril, superadded to the impossibility of extri- 
cating himself. But at the darkest hour of the Cuban enterprise, fortune, 
as if cynically bent on confounding the wisdom of the wise, raised the 
curtain on an achievement, which sets all conventional description, all 
preconceived axioms of warfare, at defiance. 

While Sampson's fleet on the memorable Sunday of the 3d of July 
was going through the wearisome routine of the blockade, the trained ew 
of an officer on the bridge of the redoubtable battleship Iowa, detected 
the smoke of a cruiser emerging from the giant fissure that gives access 
to the landlocked waters of Santiago harbor. The warning cry that rang 
out transformed the dawdling masses in every crevice of the ship, into 
spasmodic curiosity. It was exactly thirty-three minutes after nine. 
The sombre cliffs that make the sea wall of all the visible line of coast, 
were in the deep translucent shadows of the semi-tropic clime. To the 
gaze of the Iowa's men, there seemed for the first moment of intense 
scrutiny, only the image of a lowering mass of swiftly looming outlines. 
But the nautical eye, quick at distinguishing the phenomena of the sea, 
knew in a flash that the hoped-for hour had struck. The spectre was every 
instant growing distinct in shape, and when Captain " Bob " Evans reached 
the deck, he had no difficulty in distinguishing the flagship of Admiral 
Cervera, the Infanta Maria Teresa. 

The commander-in-chief of the squadron had sailed eastward to confer 
with the army staff, and the direction of the combat fell to the officer 
next in rank, Commodore Schley. So far, however, as the tactics of the 

(191) 



& 



192 FOLLOW AND FIGHT. 

action that followed were carried out, chance was the potential factors. 
That is to say, the captains of the ships followed the instinct of the 
trained sailor and struck where the blows were certain to prove most ef- 
fective. Schley gave but one order-- lollow and fight. But had the order 
never been hung at his signal mast the work would have gone on pre- 
cisely the same. Naturally, being nearest the on-coming Spaniard, Cap 
tain Evans charged his ship with the business of despatching this antag- 
onist. But there was no monoply for the Iowa. In stately procession, 
aligned as if on parade, the Spanish squadron emerged in spectral 
regularity from the granite doorway. They broke upon the somewhat 
scattered fleet of Schley, swift, confidant, as if in no sort of doubt of 
their predestined triumph. Even in the exultant ecstasy of hope ful- 
filled, the captains and crews of our fleet, could hardly forbear the 
homage of a cheer, for an enemy so proudly confidant, so superbly ship- 
shape in trim and evolution. 

Almost simultaneously, as if the four score guns of the several ships 
were touched by one hand, a thundering volley broke from Schley's com- 
bined broadsides. The Iowa, addressing herself exclusively to the 
Infanta Maria Teresa, pursued one aim from the outset, to keep the 
enemy toward the shore, batter her with the heaviest available projectiles, 
and if it could be done, ram her into helplessness. But the splendid 
speed of the Spanish ship soon made contact beyond the dream of the 
battleship's commander. The Spanish line, well out of the intricate de- 
bouch of the harbor, had turned westward, presenting their full length, 
or in nautical phrase, their broadside, to the pursuing fleet. Then gun 
answered gun in lightning swiftness. Unable to keep up with Cervera's 
ship, the Iowa headed to cross behind her, in order to make more decisive 
work by raking shot, that is, to sweep the deck from stern to bow. There 
was another purpose; the Oquenclo, flying in the wake of the Teresa, 
could be intercepted and raked from bow to stern. The tactics thus in- 
volved placed the Iowa between the two racers, but Evans doesn't seem 
to have counted the odds in his anxiety to get a point of vantage for 
firing. Yet, any one familiar with the ancient tactics of naval encounters, 
will recall, with tingling nerves, that the placing of a ship thus between 
two adversaries, was considered the triumph of the mariner's skill ; it was 
this manoeuver that won Nelson his most vaunted triumph, yet our valiant 
commander deliberately sought this place of peril. 

Nor was this the utmost risk of the daring interposition, for at almost 
the same moment the fleetest of the Spaniards, the Cristobal Colon, 
cleaving the water like an ocean flyer, came abreast of the group and 



THE FURY OF THE COMBAT. 193 

sent a withering flight of shells about and above the Iowa. It is no fig- 
ure of speech to say that the enormous projectiles of the three fighting 
ships, fell like hail on and in the deck and works of the Iowa. The ships 
were darting through the water at the highest speed the engines were 
capable of forcing. But the movement in no wise interfered with the 
deadly precision of our range finders, while it did impair the accuracy of 
the Spanish gunners, as the incredibly discrepant results attest. 

It is not easy to make the landsman comprehend the Titanic fury of the 
combat without using the technical jargon of the seaman, and yet that 
jargon, while precising the alternate shifts of the adversaries, cannot por- 
tray intelligibly to any save seafaring folk, the actuality of the episodes. 
Indeed the imagination must be invoked. Let us put ourselves in the place 
of one of the officers and note the effect! To begin with, the vessel on 
which you stand seems a volcano. The discharge of the broadside is pre- 
cisely like the impact of train against train on the railroad, only men in- 
durated by training can keep their feet when the guns thunder. If the 
effect is so benumbing, when the projectile takes its flight, what must the 
sensation be where it strikes? Nor is it possible to fully realize, let alone 
picture the pandemonium of sound, unless there be the familiarity of sight. 
There must be knowledge of the complicated structure, the turrets domi- 
nating the sulphurous pit of flames and smoke, the Hadean atmosphere, 
the grimy gnomes conjuring with the forces of destruction. 

The Iowa vomiting broad swathes of flame, heads on, always on, as if 
the point of death, the pit of the hell of bombs, were the coveted place. 
In this extraordinary race, with overmastering destructive forces fronting 
her, the ship, though incessantly struck, sped onward invincible — a throb- 
bing Behemoth of prodigious pulse and will. The monstrous volleys 
told, and almost at once the Maria Teresa began to vibrate to something 
else than the throbbing paroxysms of her engines. From the Iowa's 
deck and bridge, from her places of vantage, the withering destruction 
wrought from the steady downfall of our hail could be plainly verified. 
Finally side by side, like sportive colossi in battle, the Iowa vomited 
the contents of her entire battery, including the rapid firing guns, into 
the Oquendo, at a distance of 1,100 yards. The Spaniards' deck on the 
instant resembled a crater of hurtling metal; smoke broke upward 
through the gashes cut in the deck; flames shot in licking lines from the 
port holes; the air on the ship was torture. Still the devoted Spaniards 
gave no sign of comprehending that to fight further was insanity, not 
heroism ; the stanch ship fairly reeled an instant, as if bewildered, then 



194 THE FLYER OF THE FLEET. 

with leviathan energy shot ahead with bewildering velocity, leaving the 
assailing Iowa booming sulphurously behind her. 

Almost at the same instant, a huge apparition of spouting flame — 
lurid with innumerable wreaths of fire fringing every available foot — 
loomed up right in touch with the Iowa. It was recognized as the flyer 
of the fleet, the Cristobal Colon. Her first salutation was the planting of 
two six-inch shells, squarely in the side of the Federal vessel. Each of 
these missiles did the work intended, and had the fabric of Evans' ship 
been of anything but the best, the vessel would have gone to the bottom. 
One shell entered the dispensary, strewing the appurtenances of that de- 
partment in ruins ; another penetrated what the seamen call the coffer- 
dam, where it was found lodged after the action was over. 

At almost the same juncture a cry came from the lookout that two 
torpedo-boat destroyers were within four hundred yards of the Iowa. 
Captain Evans had the sailor's dread of the unknown, and remitting the 
assault on the fleeing Colon, he concentrated his fire on the dreaded de- 
stroyers.. A twelve-inch shell from the ship's rear battery struck the 
nearest of the terrors, and to the unspeakable delight of the watching 
crew, cut the afterpart of the nearest of the destroyers square in twain ! 
As this coup de grace was administered, a shot from the victim whirled 
over the Iowa, within two feet of the captain's head. The Iowa, for a 
maddening moment, followed the extraordinary denouement of the attack. 
The Gloucester, which had been improvised for war, from a pleasure yacht, 
commanded by Commander Wainright, one of the officers of the Maine, 
with incredible audacity made square for the two destroyers. Her light 
though formidable armament had been in constant play since the Spanish 
fleets reached the opening. With untiring fury she opened on the de- 
stroyer's craft, it will be remembered, designed to terrorize the stouter 
battle ships. The outcome would not be credited, were it not attested by 
scores of witnesses. She penetrated the vulnerable parts of the two de- 
stroyers and in a few minutes they were thrown, dismantled, on the surf- 
beaten rocks! No episode in this memorable combat, so much interested 
the world — none produced so vital a change in the relative strength of 
the fleets — for most of the European sea powers have counted upon these 
mysterious engines to offset rival superiority in large craft. 

But Evans and his vulcans had little time to more than exult over this 
astounding reversal of accepted conditions. Out of the pandemoniac 
melee, the imposing Vizcaya, suddenly uprose in ominous nearness. Then 
the two ships, as if humanly or inhumanly animate with the instinct of 
malignity, plied erery gun, each at the other. Nothing that ear ever 



THE IOWA AND VIZCAYA. 



197 



heard, eye ever saw in any other phenomena of nature, can be made use 
of to vivify the picture, the scene, the devilish ferocity of the salvos — 
sending havoc and death at every stertorous belch. The impact of the 
volleys was felt like the uplifting of an ordinary locomotive by some 
monster hand and striking the ship's side or surface. In an atmosphere 
of pungent fumes, stifling to the sense, with the ships careening on a 
boiling sea, the Iowa and Vizcaya maintained this Atlean duel, full fif- 
teen minutes. With every outpour from the the flaming maws of the 
Iowa, seams could be seen in the Vizcaya's enormous sides; cracks in her 




THE CRISTOBAL COLON. 



vital places, destruction in all the exposed vantage points — from bridge to 
tiller. A pause, as if to take breath — suspended the Spanish aggression 
for an instant, and when she struck again the leviathan Oregon was 
square upon her. 

Then the combined Federal fleet, that is, the Oregon, Iowa and Texas 
—in a group plied their crushing broadsides into the staggering squadron 
now in extremis. Most of them were enwreathed in flames ; with steer- 
ing gear and offensive appliances beyond any remedy at hand. The 
Iowa's captain and crew could see that the work was done and well done; 
11 



198 



FATE OF THE SURVIVORS. 



there was but one of the splendid ships of the Cape Verde fleet intact, 
the swift Colon— flying to the westward pursued by an ample force. 

The fire-beleagured crews of the three dismantled ships were now the 
solicitude of the officers and crew of the Iowa. It was a woeful sight 
even to the exultant victors. The three noble ships, unable to fire or fly, 
had run upon the rocks to get a last chance for life — a very poor one, for 
even had the vessels been beyond the reach of the pursuer's guns the fires 
raging below deck made explosion certain. The horrors of the bombard- 
ment were almost humanitarian amenities compared with the spectacle 




THE MARIA TERESA. 



that met the startled vision of the rescuers. The scanty crews of the 
Spanish ships were struggling in the water and in the very eyes, almost in 
the grasp of the rescuers, jvere drawn under water by the swarming sharks, 
other unfortunates were throwing themselves overboard in the wildness of 
despair to quench the flames devouring them. 

But more hideous than this, Captain Evans discovered the inhuman 
Cubans, hidden among the rocks, dispatching the helpless and naked men 
— prisoners of the United States, as the white flag was at the mast of 
each ship. The unqualifiable miscreants were deliberately picking off the 
struggling victims, as they dragged their mutilated bodies from the fangs 



AN ACT OF COURTESY. 199 

of the sharks or suffering from the wounds of the fleet. The Iowa's 
crew put an end to this feast of ferocity, and there were queer comments 
among the valiant men who had fought Spaniards to their doom in the 
interest of these semi-cannibals. Nor did the soul-stirring heroism and 
manly magnaminity of our admirable compatriots end in the mere rescue 
from the waves. In countless instances, volunteers from the boats 
climbed the burning sides of the Spanish wrecks to rescue the wounded 
— left to their doom in the flaming craters the hulks presented. Captain 
Evans, witness of the Bayard like devotion of one man, who climbed up 
the scorching sides of the Vizcaya, named the hero for promotion on th« 
spot. The Iowa's part in the bewildering drama ends fitly in an act ol 
chivalrous courtesy, fitting for record beside the scenic amenities of th-e 
troubadour days. The captain of the Vizcaya was brought up the Iowa's 
gang plank among other prisoners. When the distressed Spaniard came 
in sight of Captain Evans, he drew his sword from its scabbard, kissed the 
hilt, and with an emotion easily understood, proffered this priceless in- 
signia of the brave to the captor: " No," replied the noble sailor, ''3011 
fought too well to give up your sword, keep it." The incident sank deep 
into the minds of the Iowa's crew, for there was not a man on the ship, 
who had not heard of a foolish boast made by Captain Eulate of the 
Vizcaya, that he would drag the Iowa in tow to Spain — a prize. 

A combat so decisive, involving tests so numerous and radical in tilth 
effect, will receive the world's attention and excite volumes of description, 
as no single eye could conceive the simultaneous effort of the United 
States vessels, and no single narrative can comprehend all the details no 
matter how elaborate or exhaustive, in one single picture. History 
must accept the evidence of many, and choose the decision of the 
competent. The world who reads for the sake of knowing the human 
side of these awful slaughters we call "glorious victories," will proba- 
bly acquire a clearer insight into the action now under consideration, 
by the artless narrative of a young lad — an uncommonly wide-awake 
young lad, who gives this terse rendering of the Iowa episode and with- 
out the technical jargon which confuses ordinary recitals from seamen. 
The writer, Joseph T. Garbin, a lad of twenty, formed one of the watch 
corps of the Iowa. His artless expression is the triumph of realism ; he 
is writing from the Iowa on the night of the decisive action. 

"At eight o'clock this morning I went on deck as usual for signal 
watch. I made up my mind to keep a good lookout on the mouth of the 
harbor, as it was only on Saturday night that I had reported to the officer 
of the deck that there were three distinct lines of smoke to the laft of the 



200 THE EMERGENCY SIGNAL. 

entrance to the harbor, and I did not sleep very well during the night 
thinking of it. I thought they had steam up, and were going to make a 
break in the night. So, naturally, that only increased my anxiety to be 
the first one to see them, as the navigator said he would give $10 to the 
signal boy who gave the alarm, and I am proud to say that he stuck to 
his word, and I am $10 richer today than I was yesterday. At 9 A. M. 
this morning I reported that the smoke I saw had moved toward the en- 
trance. At 9:15 I reported it moving more so. Then, of my own accord, 
I bent on the signal 2-5-0, which means ' The enemy's ships escaping,' 
and laid it on the bridge ready to hoist. At 9:30, just as the navigator 
was taking the deck, I reported a large black ship, with two stacks and 
two military masts, in the entrance. The navigator, without looking, 
says ' Bend on the emergency signal.' With that I ran it up to the yard- 
aim. He said, 'Sound the alarm, bugler ; sound general quarters.' I 
was patiently waiting to sound the alarm, and in two minutes after, or at 
9:32 o'clock, the ship was reported ready for action. At 9:35 the Vizcaya 
opened fire, and was promptly answered by our ship with a twelve-inch gun, 
which went dangerously close for the first. Then there came a stream of 
fire from the forts and ships, and they were all directed at the Iowa, but 
she seemed to be charmed, for not a shell struck her. Captain Evans 
sang out ahead, ' Full speed, both engines,' and soon we were closing up 
on the leader of the Dagoes. ' Talk about a ship pumping steel ! We 
were at the Vizcaya when the flagship Maria Teresa got on our starboard 
side, and Captain Evans smiled and said, ' Now, men, take accurate 
aim, and make every shot tell.' So we were putting broadside after 
broadside into both ships, when suddenly the Maria Teresa turned 
around and headed for the beach. Our captain manoeuvred the ship a 
little, and got between them again, but this time with the Vizcaya on our 
starboard and the flagship on our port side. More shells hit the flagship, 
and she ran on the beach, with her crew dropping from all parts of her. 
Soon the smoke oozed from her and a terrible explosion rent the air, and 
then the crack cruiser of the Dagoes' fleet struck her colors and ran up a 
pair of white pants as a flag of truce. 

" We then manoeuvred around the Vizcaya so as to get the Almirante 
Oquendo on our left, and succeeded. In ten minutes the Oquendo was 
in the same position as the Maria Teresa, laid high and dry on the beach, 
fire pouring from all sides and parts of her. Still the Vizcaya kept up 
the fight and we saw that she was doomed. But then things changed. 
She let drive her two eleven-inch guns and struck us plump on the water 
line, causing a fire to start on the berth deck. But discipline showed it- 



A SHOWER OF SHELLS. 201 

self here, for the fire was hardly started before it was put out, but we 
were leaking badly. This in time was also stopped. 

"Suddenly, as if it were a part of a programme, Captain Bob sang out 
from the conning tower, ' Come, boys ; five minutes more of this work, 
and she'll be done for.' Then you should have seen the fire come from 
those guns. It seemed as if all the guns in the ship were discharged at 
once. When the smoke cleared away a little the captain sang out: 'Man 
the secondary battery ; bugler sound the torpedo attack.' There, sure 
enough, were Spain's two dreaded torpedo boat destroyers. The secondary 
battery made the shells fairly rain on them. They did not last five 
minutes." 

This eager eyed boy on the spot, unquestionably all eyes for the thrill- 
ing spectacle, it will be observed, counts the shots of the Iowa as de- 
cisive on the torpedo destroyers. He also specifies severe hurt done the 
Iowa not pointed out in the official report. These apparent discrepancies 
illustrate the perplexity of presenting the ensemble of the momentarily 
varying action — for the officers' reports contain the same contradictions and 
averments. It is instructive to compare what an officer's eyes saw and 
an officer's pen set down, viewing precisely the same phenomena. Cadet 
Graeme, fresh in the impressions of what he has jnst taken part in, wrote 
from the same ship, the Iowa: 

" A splendid, big, dark colored cruiser, flying a very large Spanish flag, 
was coming out past Morro at full speed. I jumped to my turret and 
saw everything ready in a hurry. The Iowa was headed in toward Morro 
at about six thousand yards' distance. 

" The Spanish vessels all headed to the westward and before we had 
turned to follow them I got in three shots at the Vizcaya. One of the 
cadets said he saw one of my shots land right on the Vizcaya's forecastle 
and burst. This was the only shooting I did in the action, as our star- 
board side was toward the enemy all the rest of the time. Our heavy 
guns began firing within two minutes after the first alarm. The enemy's 
shells came over us in showers. I saw the Texas on our port hand and 
beyond her the Brooklyn. The Oregon was to the eastward of us, but 
she passed the stern of us and headed in toward the enemy. 

"When the first ship came out she fired an eleven -inch shell at us 
which passed just over the bridges from the bow to the starboard quarter 
and struck the water near the quarterdeck. If it had struck us the effect 
would have been terrific, as it was a raking shot. The enemy fired a 
great deal of shrapnel at us, and the whistling of the rifle balls as the 
shells burst could be heard plainly. 



202 



EFFECT OF THE LIGHT GUNS. 



" All this time a running fire was kept up with the cruisers. Our 
twelve and eight inch shells hulled the-m, and the lighter guns made their 
sides look like pepper boxes. The Maria Teresa and the Oquendo were 
seen to be on fire in about twenty minutes from the beginning of the action. 
They headed for the shore and were on the beach in thirty-four minutes 
from the first gun, complete wrecks, burning fiercely, the Spaniards 
swimming ashore on gratings, ladders and other wreckage. The Oregon 
was with us, but she and the Texas and Brooklyn devoted themselves 
principally to the Colon and Vizcaya. We at once set out at full speed 
after these two ships. 




A SIX-POUNDER RAPID FIRE GUN IN ACTION. 

"The Oregon and Brooklyn kept up a hot fire at the two fleeing Span- 
iards and the Texas fired an occasional long range shot. We were too 
far astern to fire at them, but we began to gain slowly on the Vizcaya. 
Our first action lasted fifty-four minutes. The Vizcaya put her helm 
a-port and headed in for the beach in a sinking condition. She was also 
on lire. Two heavy shells had hit us on the starboard bow forward of 
the armor The watertight doors had all been closed at the beginning of 



"OUT ALL BOATS." 203 

the action, so the leak was not serious. We let the ships chase the Colon 
and we turned in toward the Vizcaya. We left our guns and the word 
'Out all boats' was passed. . . . The Vizcaya was burning fiercely 
inside the superstructure, and the after ports were red with flames. 
While we were near, the mainmast fell with a crash, the large military 
top falling across the after eleven-inch barbette. The guns were popping 
as the fire reached them, the shells whistling over our heads, and by the 
sharp crack or sullen boom I judged we had a sample shot from every 
piece of ordnance in the ship. 

"Every minute or so the fire would reach a box of rapid fire ammuni- 
tion, and an explosion very much like a 'flower pot' would occur, thin, 
feathery trails of smoke shooting far heavenward in a dozen different 
directions. While we were some distance off, even from the Iowa one 
could see the men going down the side on ropes, and swimming ashore in 
little groups. Our first boats took men right from the ship's side, while 
some hung on to ropes and refused to let go, fearing they would drown. 

" Several had to be pulled away by main force. We had three boats 
at work when I got there, and the United States yacht Hist had two 
small skiffs employed in the rescue. I headed for the bow, but could 
see no one on board. Any way it was at this time too hot for a human 
being to live aboard of her. The ship was a crackling mass of flame. I 
saw a great gaping shot hole in the forward barbette, and a good many 
shreds of clothing about the bridge and forecastle." 

While the Iowa, which was in the direct path of the escaping enemy, lost 
herself in her own smoke, and that of the enemy, the other vessels of the 
fleet aligned as may be seen in the comprehensive diagram illustrating 
these pages, made directly for the course of the flying Spaniards, not quite 
certain whether the manoeuvre was intended to cover some ulterior pur- 
pose or whether Admiral Cervera meant to stake all upon a fight of ship 
to ship. The speed of the enemy and to a certain extent the unprepared - 
ness of Commodore Schley's vessels decided this ; for, as if by instinct 
each of the blockading vessels pushed to intercept the nearest enemy. In 
the melee it was not always possible to tell which vessel did the deadly 
execution soon visible in the flying squadron. We have seen the Iowa 
placing herself squarely in the path of the Vizcaya and at the same time 
challenging the utmost efforts of the Oquendo. The Texas, which sur- 
prised her own crew and the enemy as well, and animated by the con- 
sciousness of the result dependent upon her speed, turned the prophecies 
of her detractors and even the hopes of her friends into idle sayings, 



CERVERA FEARED THE BROOKLYN. 



205 



for she developed a speed that it seems counted for a great deal in the 
precipitate yielding of Cervera's vessels. 

They had not counted on any approach to such sailing qualities ; in 
fact Admiral Cervera himself owned, that when the order to emerge from 
Santiago reached him, though he apprehended a desperate conflict, he 
counted the Brooklyn as the only antagonist likely to be able to maintain 
the combat if he could turn it into a stern chase. The Texas itself be- 
came the centre of a fire almost as ferocious as though it had been con- 
centric. But the vessel was so stoutly put together that not a splinter 
was displaced nor a man injured, though Captain Philip was obliged, 




WRECK OF THE VIZCAYA 



so dense was the fall of missiles, to transfer his operating station from the 
conning tower, as it is called, to the bridge. And just as he did so a 
shell from the enemy riddled the pilot house, leaving it useless during the 
rest of the action. Another shell tore a hole through an ash funnel and 
exploded in the smokestack, but injured no one. The Texas, meanwhile, 
was like a hive of gigantic ants, each man Avorking with deadly intensity 
and each invisible to his neighbor, for the smoke grew everj' instant dense, 
sulphurous, blinding I And it is a curious comment on the enginery, 



206 



EVERY BROADSIDE A TORTURE. 



shown to be so fatefully effective, that the master strokes of destruction 
were wielded in an almost impenetrable darkness. 

In old times a vessel undergoing a bombardment had a free sea, clear 
air, and only a slight jar from the detonation of the guns. Every time 
the Texas leviathans vomited forth their monstrous missiles, the men on 
their feet were flung violently upon the decks by the concussion, which to 
an outsider implied the beginning of the wracking to pieces of the ship 
itself. It can be readily understood therefore what the captains and com- 




WRECK OF THE " OQUENDO. 

manders of the new school vessels mean, when they frankly declare that 
the victory is due and due alone to the 'men at the guns. For every 
broadside is a torture, in fact is accompanied by pains and penalties, al- 
most as fatal to the physical system as a charge of cavalry or a fusillade 
on land, to infantry. 

Fitfully the great vessel passed out of the pandemoniac atmosphere 
long enough to catch a glimpse of the lurid nebulae surrounding the 
enemy ; then redoubled vigor, if this were possible, was added to the ef- 
forts of the gunners. The fight had been going on an hour or more, when 
the vulcan forces of the Texas were made aware that their projectiles had 
riddled the two enemies nearest the indefinable sweep of the ship's pro- 



"DON'T CHEER, BOYS." 207 

digious missiles. Then aligning, as if by accident, the Brooklyn, the 
Oregon and the Texas found themselves cleaving the waters neck and 
neck after the Cristobal Colon and the Almirante Oquendo. But the 
speed, the incessant crash, the abysmal confusion, did not seem for an in- 
stant to deter the activity of the gunners, or in the slightest effect the 
preternatural accuracy of their aim. A vast apparition of flame, gaunt 
and ghastly, arms obtruding in the darkness of the smoke flashed and fell 
into quiescence. Then lines were revealed ; the Oquendo had turned 
sharp, panting and sinking in an attempt to reach the land. Still the 
Texas guns roared and the deadly missiles from all her batteries flew in 
clusters against the now helpless wreck. Through the murky atmosphere, 
the man at the post on the Texas signaled that the vessel had struck 
and simultaneously with this an explosion rent the air that fairly made 
the waters about the Texas uprear and quiver as though a million mines 
had exploded beneath her keel. 

It was at this memorable point that Captain Philip uttered the excla- 
mation which has evoked the admiring comments of mankind. The 
titans of the Texas, conscious of their handiwork and spectators of the 
result, began a fierce vindictive cry of exultation: " Don't cheer, boys, 
the poor devils are dying," Captain Philip called out, and the Texas, 
with the men subdued and thoughtful, catching fitful glimpses of the 
Oquendo's tragic helplessness, tore on to secure the Cristobal Colon. 
In this episode of the engagement, another vessel, the Oregon, made the 
record that sailors love. For, unwearied by her voyage half round the 
world, this splendid ship tore through the water like an express train, out- 
sailing swifter rivals. The Colon had performed a miracle up to this mo- 
ment: she had reached a forty mile bourn from the mouth of the Santiago 
prison, and under all the laws of naval experience, she ought to have been 
safe. The Brooklyn, counted on for swiftness and not for strength, had 
kept in relentless chase. But divining the purpose of the commander of 
the Colon, Admiral Schley directed his course far enough out to intercept 
the flying Spaniard at a headland many miles distant. This to some ex- 
tent lessened the effectiveness of the Brooklyn's fire. Hence, when the 
Oregon joined the chase and discovered a speed equal to either of the 
others, Admiral Schley knew the victory not only won but consummated. 

The Brooklyn, Texas and Oregon were within deadly range, their 
guns plying incessant destruction, when the Colon was seen to turn and 
then give up the fight. As was fitting, Admiral Schley hastened aboard 
the Spaniard, receiving the surrender of the last of the fleet. Returning 
to his own vessel Commodore Schley, who has a very warm corner in the 



208 



A NICE FIGHT, JACK. 



hearts of his sailors, came near enough to the Texas to call to his friends : 
" It was a nice fight, Jack, wasn't it." Then the Fourth of July feelings 
of the sailors,from the chief in command,to the coal shoveler, broke out. 
And Captain Philip, though the time appropriate to call all hands to the 
quarter deck, to bare his head and deliver this impressive epilogue: "I 
want to make public acknowledgment here that I believe in God the 
Father Almighty. I want all you officers and men to lift your hats and 
from your hearts to offer silent thanks to the Almighty." 




THE VESUVIUS THROWING PROJECTILES. 



PART II. 

HOWEVER gifted the historian, whatever powers he may possess in 
making real to the eye the thing of the thought, the world is agreed 
and I think rightly, that the word, reflecting the impressions of the man who 
has been part of a fateful enterprise, is of more worth, if not more weight, 
than the most carefully wrought coordinations of the purely philosophic 
annalist. Recall the avidity of mankind in reading and treasuring Caesar's 
ideas and impressions of his cyclonic campaign in Gaul; Napoleon's ut- 
terances after the indescribable discomfiture in Russia ; these remain in 
the world's mind, while the studiously wrought chapters of the conscien- 
tious historian are known only to the erudite or the enthusiast. Hence 
the sayings of Schley, of Evans, of Clark, of any of the knightly paragons, 
who conducted our vessels to victory, are of more value than all the 
philosophic study the French Academy could combine. I do not mean 
by this, that a Schley, an Evans, a Dewey, can record history, more ac- 
curately or more worthily, only, that what they say has the attraction of 
actuality. The reader is seeing the soul of one of the guiding factors in 
victory or defeat. The plodding historian intimidated by countless con- 
tradiction, can only present the photographic negatives — while the Schlevs, 
the Evans, the Deweys, the Clarks — the man at the gun gives the crayon 
lines caught, just as they were drawn by the vast camera of nature. 

On his return to Washington, Schley was saluted as the hero and 
architect of the Santiago edifice. Not that he claimed or reclaimed; he 
was of too fine a mould for that. He did what was allotted to the com- 
mander of our fleet to do, and he was hero-like, disdainfully indifferent 
as to the attribution of the glory. It was in short, glory enough for him 
that on his beloved Brooklyn — on all the ships, he loves as men love their 
children, no life was lost, and the end won. We have his official version 
of the grandiose action, which really ended the war, but an official report 
is necessarily a guarded statement of facts— no matter how momentous 
the subject; just as history is constrained to a certain austere air of all- 
knowingness, which impairs the free play of the imagination. Taken un- 
awares, as it were, in the humorous inquisition of the interviewer, Schley 
made these extremely interesting addenda to a report which the world 
will read with interest so long as the language lasts; 

(209) 



210 CERVERA FORCED TO FIGHT. 

" My mind in regard to the battle," he said, " is like a camera full of in- 
stantaneous photographs, the negatives of which have not been fully 
developed. It has been so far., impossible for me to form a correct im- 
pression of the entire engagement, but in thinking it over from time to 
time, I remember new circumstances and impressions that were made on 
my mind at the moment, but which had not before been remembered. 
In the course of time I will have the negatives well developed and be 
able to give the correct history of the engagement as I saw it. As far as 
our being in the least unprepared for the battle, — that is all nonsense. 
We could not have been more prepared for them if they had notified us 
that they were coming out. Our men watched the harbor night and day 
so closely that a rat could not have slipped out without being seen. The 
enemy was unable to put a shovel of fresh coal on their fires without the 
fact being reported. Beyond the hills, at the entrance of the harbor we 
could see the smoke arising from the enemy's vessels. While it was thin 
we were at rest, but if a particularly black cloud arose we were alert. 
On the morning the enemy left the harbor my Quartermaster reported 
to me that the columns of smoke were shifting about the harbor, and 
were denser than usual It looked as though they were preparing for a 
dash. I was positive that they would come out within twenty four 
hours. Public opinion everywhere is the same, and public opinion was 
sure to force Cervera to fight. So sure were we that they were coming- 
out of the harbor, that we were at quarters when they appeared, and 
three minutes later we had begun firing. It was the same on the other 
vessels and the signal that the enemy was coming out appeared on all 
the ships almost at the same instant." 

The reader who has followed the narrative of the conflict, will compre- 
hend the difficulty and embarrassments of the judicious historian on 
meeting this authoritative averment, for it is in testimony from every 
ship, that the men were in Sunday regalia ; that while the debouch of 
the Spanish fleet was universally regarded as an eventuality, it was no- 
where looked upon as a certainty. 

Evidently, Admiral Sampson was not so impressed ; that is, not as 
Schley avers he was, or he would not have steamed away, to leave the 
conduct of the fight to his second in command. Admiral Schley does 
not mistake, he simply confuses the denouement, with the prelude. Once 
the enemy in the open, Schley was the warrior to the tips of his fingers. 
He ordered his superb Brooklyn, where her fleetness and firing were de- 
cisive. He left the Vizcaya, as Captain Evans shows, and turned the 
prodigious energies of his Brooklyn to the Cristobal Colon. For this 




THE CUBANS. 



21] 



reason he could not positively 
deny the claim of the Cubans 
that Admiral Cervera surren- 
dered to them, and that they 
turned the vanquished Spaniard 
over to the United States fleet , 
but he could say that this was 
the first time that he had heard 
of such a claim ! He had little 
opportunity of observing the 
conduct of the Cubans and 
could not speak from experi- 
ence. He quoted a Spanish 
colonel, who said to him that he 
hoped the Yankees would not 
have the same experience with 
the Cubans as allies, that the 
Spaniards had with them as 
enemies. " They are an excel- 
lent advance guard of a re- 
treat," said the colonel, "and 
an admirable rear guard for an 
advance." 

In speaking of the disputed 
merits of the eight-inch and the 
thirteen-inch guns as shown 
in the engagement, Admiral 
Schley records: "I think the 
relative merits of the two guns 
are about the same. The only 
difference is that when you are 
too far away, with the eight-inch 
guns for them to pierce the 
armor of the enemy, you must 
get nearer. If they are near 
enough they will shoot through 
anything put before them. It 
is like the case of Admiral Far- 
ragut, when he sent a com- 
mander to bombard a fort. 



212 THE MAN BEHIND THE GUN. 

When the commander had reached the station assigned, he signaled, 4 1 
cannot reach the enemy.' ' Go nearer,' signaled back Farragut." Con- 
quests like his own and Dewey's can be best understood by Schley's ap- 
preciation of the plain sailor, the citizen of the republic, diverted from 
peace, to carry on the hateful work of war : 

" To the man behind the gun, I cannot give enough praise. I consider 
it the highest honor to command such a splendid body of men. No better 
sailors and fighters can be found in the world, and I doubt if they can 
be equaled. During moments when a rain of iron hail was pouring all 
around us, the men laughed, and when a shot struck near them they gave 
a cheer. 

"They were absolutely fearless, even in the face of death. How we 
escaped with such a slight loss will always be a marvel to me. From the 
instant the nose of the first ship appeared beyond the harbor entrance, 
the Spaniards poured into us and about us, a terrible and continuous fire 
from all their guns. They were prepared to fire as rapidly as possible, 
and did so in their desperate hope of escape. I do not think the result 
was due to any confusion on their ships, but to a lack of practice. They 
simply could not hit us, while our men were so well trained that they 
almost could hit a mosquito. For seven or eight years they had been 
practicing for such an opportunity, and they pumped shot after shot into 
the enemy, and after they secured the range every shot told. 

" The Spaniards underrated the republic's sailors and the republic from 
the beginning. As a matter of fact they were never in our class at all. 
The ships that sailed out of the harbor, were the finest that could be put 
together, yet they never had a chance of escaping. If I had been in com- 
mand of the enemy's fleet, I would never have adopted the tactics em- 
ployed by Admiral Cervera. If they had scattered as soon as they had 
come out, one or two might have escaped, which would have been a vic- 
tory for him, even if the others had been sacrificed. If he had taken a 
dark night, he would have had a better chance. If I had been in his 
place, I should not have let a dark night pass without trying to escape. 
As it was, he could not have suited our convenience better. When he 
came out we were prepared to fight, and if necessary to chase him. I 
had coal and provisions enough to follow him to Cadiz." 

Admiral Schley declared that the surrender of Santiago was due to the 
bombardment of the navy. If it had not surrendered when it did, the 
town would have been wiped from the map. Out of 108 eight and six- 
inch shots fired over the hills at the city, he said 101 fell in the streets of 
th© town. If Santiago had not been surrendered the next day, we woulij 



hi 


X^ 




% 


111 

# 

• 


v 




Captain Kobley D. Evans. 



Commodore John W. Philip. 





Captain Chari.es v 1 Clark. 



Captain Henry C. Tayloe. 



SCHLEY'S MANEUVERING. 216 

haze brought up the other vessels and dropped the ten and thirteen-inch 
shells into the city. They had no alternative but to surrender. The dis- 
tance was four and a half miles and the intervening hills were about two 
hundred and fifty feet in height. 

When the Spanish fleet came out, the flagship of the United States 
squadron, the Brooklyn, was from two and a half to three miles from the 
first of the enemy's fliers. Admiral Schley had been forewarned that if 
an action ever came, several of the Spanish commanders were eager to try 
the metal of his ship, hence, the instant he caught sight of the armada, 
he felt that the Brooklyn would be the target; that one or two at least of 
the enemy would try the effectiveness of the ram on her armor. He 
waited therefore, or rather directed his craft more for the purpose of head- 
ing off the enemy than attacking them. His guns were operated from 
the instant sight could be obtained, from what is called in naval parlance 
the "starboard side," and as the vessel took on headway with increase of 
fuel, the flagship's fire was probably the most constant, that is the least 
intermittent of any of the ships. In fact, it is in testimony from the crew, 
that the guns became so hot from time to time, that some of them had to 
be abandoned, momentarily. But, two of her boilers were not fired, when 
the first of the enemy's fleet appeared, and this accounts for the lack of 
speed shown in the earlier part of the action. But second by second the 
fires told. Before the decisive moment, she had six furnaces flaming like 
volcanoes and with this vantage easily distanced her consorts, when the 
final chase for the Colon set in. 

Admiral Schley's responsibility was not ended with the conduct of his 
own ship, for with Sampson far away, like Sheridan at Winchester, the 
directing of the battle depended upon him as second in command, and as the 
event proved, Schley grappled an entirely unforeseen contingency and 
wrested a victory which might have been less decisive. In fact Schley's 
manoeuvering of the fleet made it impossible for Cervera to elect any 
other action than the one he followed. For, when the Spanish admiral, in 
obedience to orders, issued from the channel under the guns of Mono, he 
had three feasible possibilities before him. He might have rushed square 
ahead, beating down the ships nearest to him, and even by the sacrifice of 
one, make good the escape of the others. This would have been a sub- 
stantial victory: or, he might have divided his fleet, sending half eastward 
and half westward, thus securing seven chances in ten of the escape of 
half; or he might have stood squarely out en masse, held the blockaders 
at bay, fought a defensive fight until night, and might then with what 
were left, have successfully evaded his adversaries. Schley's action, how- 
12 



216 



CERVERA'S ALTERNATIVES. 



ever, in closing in under the fire of Morro, left the Spanish admiral but 
two alternatives, flight to the east or flight to the west. Luck gave him 
an advantage, for had he gone eastward he would have met Sampson with 
the New York and a half dozen formidable craft of secondary capacity. 
From his flagship, Schley saw that his lieutenants were carrying out, as if 
by hypnotic inspiration, exactly what he had in mind, for within three 
quarters of an hour of the issue under the guns of Morro, the Iowa had 
riddled the Vizcaya, which fluttered on the water like a vast series of 
pyrotechnics, spitting flame and belching smoke. 




SIGNALING THE FLEET. 



After words have clone their best to reproduce this awful moment that 
no language seems adequate to lucidly portray, there is still lacking a 
vague something. How account for the momentous issue decided in three 
hours? The results of all the centuries of scientific application came 
together, embodied in the six Spanish vessels and our own fleet. Untold 



THE THREE HOURS' COMBAT. 



217 



millions of money, inestimabty more than is represented by the mere cost 
of the ship as she sits in the water, are represented in the integers of a 
leet. Hence, the three hours' combat is really the final stroke, the finite 
ist word, so to speak, in the contest of intelligence, science, patience and 
tevotion. And yet the result so far as it impresses the world, can be 
baldly told in a few lines. Fleet met fleet and one was sunk. Yet it 
would be a very unsatisfactory history that dismissed the event in this 
laconic fashion, and for many a day the curious will inquire, and many and 
many a volume will be written, to tell the tale second by second, minute 
by minute, during the three hours. But a great deal more vital thing- 
was won than the sinking of six iron hulks by six other iron hulks. 

There is no student of history who would not be glad to know the mind 




D. ANTONIO EULATE, 
Captain of the ''Vizcaya." 



D. JDAN B. LAZAGA. 
Captain of the "Oqneudo." 



of the man who held the heavy oar in the triremes of Antony, when hla 
imperial hopes went down on the sea near Actium. We are probably no 
more curious than those ancient mariners, nor more faithful to the facts 
than the Plinys and Plutarchs, yet the writer who seeks to embody with 
fairness, clearness and impartiality the handiwork and significance of each 
instrument in the conduct of such a combat as the Santiago victory, finds 
himself embarrassed by the richness of the testimonies, fresh and live and 
lucid from the very heat, smoke and fury of the battle itself. Nor, sur- 
prisingly enough is the story of one vessel the story of another, or the 
adumbration of the whole. For each ship wrought somewhat in the 
semblance of its commander, and these typified the varied range of intel- 
lectual valor in the extraordinary phalanx of illustrious sailors who have 
glorified the annals of our navy. 



218 



THE DEAFENING PRELUDE. 



When the apparition of the Spanish fleet surprised the Oregon, two 
long blasts of her whistle admonished her neighbors, and the attention of 
the official charged with that duty became fixed on the phenomenon. The 
men at the guns, wearied with weeks of tedious blockading, broke into 
shouts, as though the vessel had just reached port from a long voyage. 
The cheers and the volleys from the guns mingled, and the Spaniard, as 
he rode out gallantly, gave a taste of his metal with an eleven-inch shell 
at each ship in succession, deafeningly preluding with crashes that seemed 
the result of mechanical devices, so regular and so rapid were they. The 
Oregon to the surprise of her crew, reached her best speed almost sim- 
ultaneously with the onrush westward, of the third Spanish vessel. From 
the Oregon's decks the onrush of the Towa and Texas seemed part of a 





D. EMILIO D. MOREU. 
Captain of the '"Cristobal Colon." 



mMmmm 



D. VICTOR M. CONCAS. 
Captain of the " Maria Teresa." 



studied plan ; for a time there seemed danger that the three United States 
vessels would do each other mischief, but the sailor knows Ids sea, and 
though apparently crossing each other's path, every gun aimed went 
straight to its mark in the body of the enemy. 

Naturally, the excitement of battle does not leave the mind of the fighter 
.dear for the exact sequence of things as they pass, but the people on the 
Oregon marked the rush of the torpedo-boats and calculated the effect of 
a stream of six-pound shells, flung at the two terrors, as they seemed to 
hesitate, which vessel to choose, as the victim of their deadly powers. 
A shot from the six-inch starboard gun of the Oregon, is credited with 
having blown up one of the monsters, and it is even testified that the 
destroyer went down, though it is confusingly added that the Gloucester 
ran toward the sinking vessel and finished her. 




Admiral Pascual Cervera y Topete. 



THE OREGON AND THE TERRORS. 221 

The same witness testifies that the Maria Teresa burst into flames 
almost simultaneously and ran for the beach, and that all the ships sent 
broadsides into-her. It is significant of the spirit of the combat, that the 
Oregon, in the language of the crew, seeing the enormous vessel hors de 
combat, disdained to stop for the laurels of victory, but continued on- 
ward, after everything in sight, that still presented belligerent activity. It 
is likewise set down that a shot from the Oregon's thirteen-inch forward gun 
settled the fate of the Almirante Oquendo, that she too burst into flames 
and like the Infanta Maria Teresa, struck for the shore. " Her colors not 
having been hauled down we raked her as we passed to make sure that 
she would not fire any more ; and at the sight of two enemies knocked 
out, all on board who could see, set up throat-splitting cheers and worked 
away like Trojans to get at the next enemy in line." And to give each 
his share, word was sent down to the gnomes immured in the deeps of the 
vessel, where neither air, sea nor sky were known or seen, the victorious 
results thus far achieved; so that as the mighty vessel panted on, cheers 
from above met cheers from the decks, and these again were reechoed by 
husky murmurings, as if humorous Calibans were grunting their appro- 
bation in the tartarean regions below. 

There was consternation on the Oregon's decks, however, when the 
reckoning showed that one of the Spaniards was still at large, and then it 
was discovered that the Cristobal Colon was looming up in the distance 
four miles ahead. Grown insatiate by their astounding successes, the 
vikings of the Oregon counted all that had been won as nothing, if this 
melancholy vestige escaped. It seemed impossible to call for further ex- 
ertion from the grimy giants who had been working in steam and flame 
without relief. It was twelve o'clock and the outworn mariners were 
bidden to what they called facetiously a " Dewey breakfast"— baked beans 
and strong coffee. But meanwhile, inch by inch, the great vessel was 
crawling upon its victim until the captain, confident of the efficacy of the 
murderous thirteen-inch shells, determined to try that resource. They 
fell about the Colon, but did not strike her, until toward one o'clock the 
Spaniard slowed down as if searching shelter landward. The Brooklyn's 
fleetness gave her the finishing stroke, and when Admiral Sampson reached 
the scene after the enemy had surrendered, the prize was turned over to 
the Oregon, whose exhausted men were called upon for another day's 
work, in rescuing the victims on board the wrecked ships. In all these 
evolutions — incomprehensible to laymen — it is remarkable that the deluge 
of iron poured out from the Spaniards, made so little impression — in fact 
none. At the same time the firing of the enemy was by no means amateur 



222 ONE GUN FOR THE FIREMEN. 

or indecisive. An eleven-inch shell, passing over the bridge of the 
Oregon, rendered many of the men almost lifeless for a few moments, 
blew off their hats and sent everything of a movable nature scurrying by 
the mere perturbation of the air; the sensation caused was like that of a 
heavy atmospheric pressure and the roar of an express train in a tunnel. 
And yet the three hours' firing and manoeuvering of Schley's implacable 
monsters, wrought death to four hundred of the Spaniards and but one 
man was slain on the decks of the victors ! 

Car after car of ammunition rolled upward to the panting guns and the 
"hoists" worked as if by electricity. The men in the fire-room redoubled 
their energies, plunged the coal into the seething apertures as if it were 
missiles directed at the flying fleets of the enemy. After a half hour's 
practice the eyes that sighted the guns on the Oregon had become so keen, 
that at this stage of the combat not a single shot deflected an appre- 
ciable space from the point aimed at. And when it is borne in mind that 
a volley exceeded in weight a heavily laden train, the wonder to the lay 
mind is, that the Spanish ships were not crushed bodily and sunk into 
fragments in the boiling waters. The Oregon's path, as seen from her 
own decks by observant eyes, was the broadway of peril, of endeavor and 
of final decisive victory. For her guns, aided by her astounding speed, 
enabled each of the cruisers to finish at discretion all opposed to them. 
Below, human nature was at its last ebb ; the captain of the vessel peering 
eagerly into the pathway of flame and smoke, when the engineer came up 
with trouble in his face and accent: "Can't you fire just one gun? " he 
asked with a tone of imploring. "One gun, what for?" Captain Clark 
responded. " The firemen are lying down just worn out, but if they could 
hear a gun and thought that we were anywhere near the enemy and in 
action, they will get up on their feet in an instant." And it so happened 
that the captain thought that he could send one of his "railway trains" 
within effective distance of the flying Colon. The legend runs that the 
solace thus afforded the worn-out firemen, sustained them for another half 
hour, until at the end of 1,776 shots the great vessel found her reward. 
It was no less enrapturing to the crew when the final shot was fired, to 
learn that the captain of the Colon regarded fate as maliciously against 
him, when a vessel like the Oregon not only chased him but chased him 
successfully until a thirteen-inch gun commanded every foot of his deck. 
For, curiously enough, the last gun fired in this amazing conflict was from 
the deck of the Oregon, a gun which when the war began, was at least 
10,000 miles from the scene of Spain's overthrow ! 

Ensign Powell, of the flagship New York, who followed Hobson on his 
Merrimac mission, recounts the battle as seen from the far rear, in the 



IN FIGHTING CLOTHES. 223 

impatient presence of the admiral commanding. He notes that when the 
word reached the vessel that Cervera had broken out and the flagship 
" twenty miles away," the men were filled with gloom, but reassured that 
they would be in at the death, they broke into irrestrainable jubilation, 
they were " crazy to get at the dagoes." Nor is the sailor's picture of a 
crew in such a conjuncture without its value : 

"All hands took off their clean Sunday clothes and put on their dirt- 
iest habiliments. After seeing that everything was all right at my gun, I 
went below, took off my own finery, put on my fighting suit, and was 
ready for business. I must admit that for once I caught the spirit of the 
occasion, and was as crazy for a scrap, as any of them, though I am free 
to admit that I don't ordinarily like shells whistling around my ears. All 
this time the battle ships were pouring in shot after shot, while the four 
Spanish crusiers, who turned away from us to the westward and were 
straining along the coast, were quite enveloped in their smoke. We 
could see shells splashing the water in all directions — a sight it was worth 
going to war to see. The two parallel lines of vessels moved up the 
coast, but we moved faster astern of them and gained somewhat. The 
Spanish vessels soon turned a point and we lost sight of them. Then 
there was more smoke at the mouth of the harbor and we knew that 
more vessels were coming out; and in a minute we saw, first one, then a 
second torpedo-boat destroyer appear and head up, after the ships. They 
had nearly a clear chance to run, as all the vessels had passed to the 
westward except one, the little Gloucester, commanded by Lieutenant 
Commander Wainwright, a boat not as big as either of the destroyers, a 
converted yacht, with only six six-pounders on a side — not as much of a 
battery as that of either of the destroyers. 

" But that didn't feaze Dick Wainwright. He sailed in and gave those 
boats fits, first one and then the other, and when we were about off Morro, 
and three miles to the eastward of the three vessels, a shot struck some- 
thing explosive on one of the destroyers, there was a puff of black smoke 
followed by a cloud of white, and the vessel turned and made for the 
shore. The Gloucester then turned her attention tc the other destroyer, 
which turned and started back for Morro, but we were there, and my for- 
ward four-inch gun was ordered to open fire on it. Seeger, the gun cap- 
tain, hit that fellow the first shot, nailed a boiler, and the boat never 
moved again." 

Passing the helpless Spanish craft, Ensign Powell confirms the in- 
humanity of the Cubans. He says : 

" We saw one nice little example of Cuban bravery there. Those 



224 PRISONERS OF WAR. 

sweet, kind, considerate, gentle, abused Cuban soldiers, whom we are 
fighting for, were on the beach, shooting every Spaniard who came within 
range, so that swimmers and boats had to turn back to the ship. And 
that ship blew up early. We saw a dozen small explosions, and finally 
one big one that tore the after part of the ship to bits. The Iowa sent a 
boat, and a torpedo boat also went in, and I'll bet those Cubans stopped 
their butchery in short order, under the persuasion of their guns. And, 
by the way, that mutilation story of our marines is untrue. One was 
killed with a machete and naturally had a couple of bad-looking cuts. 
The other was shot thirty or forty times, but neither was mutilated as 
was given out." 

As bearing on the part the flagship took in the fight, the Ensign's naive 
contribution has a certain value: 

"About two o'clock we saw the Colon give up and head for the shore. 
We then went to quarters again, but she never fired another shot ; merely 
hauled down her flag and ran the boat on the beach- We were there al- 
most as soon as the Oregon and Brooklyn. All our boats went for 
prisoners, and then the Resolute, an ammunition supply boat, came up 
from behind, and all the prisoners were sent to her except the Captain of 
the Colon and Second Admiral of the Spanish fleet, who came to us. It 
was a big job getting them off, and I wish we had done something to 
them. They broke valves in their ship that let in the water, so that she 
gradually filled and now she is sunk on the bottom. They also disabled 
all their guns by throwing their truck mechanisms overboard. This is 
distinctly against the rules of war, and the captain could be hanged for 
ullowing it. 

"It was awful to see that beautiful big ship settle hour after hour. 
When our men got on board, the engine-rooms were so badlj' flooded that 
they could not find the valves that had been opened, though probably it 
would have done no good, as they had been broken so that they couldn't 
have been closed. After the Spanish Captain and Second Admiral came 
on board the New York, I went over in a boat to get their belongings. I 
found a gang from the Oregon loading the prisoners to send them to the 
Resolute. I went all through the ship and got a couple of bayonets for 
souvenirs. When I had a load of the Captain's clothes, I came back 
here, and it was dinner time. I then had hopes that they would stop the 
leaks and float the Colon off. Mr. Potter promised I should go on her prize 
crew, which would have meant a trip to New York or Norfolk. But that 
was not to be. A little later we could see she was sinking. Then about 



THE EPIC OF THE GLOUCESTER. 225 

dark she slid off the rocks into deep water, and the signal came over that 
she was afloat but sinking rapidly." 

To the nautical mind, quite the most thrilling of this epic combat was 
the encounter of the transformed pleasure yacht Gloucester commanded 
by Richard Wainwright, who had been one of the officers of the Maine. 
Following in the wake of the Spanish fleet, came the two terrors of the 
modern marine, the Pluton and the Furor. Now this species of vessel 
was counted upon, or has been counted upon, to neutralize the velocity 
and armament, as well as the shield on the modern battle ship. Able to 
attain great speed and armed with torpedoes calculated to penetrate the 
stoutest armor as Cushing's destruction of the Albemarle proved and the 
loss of the Maine corroborates, these little craft had been the unknown 
quantity, exercising the conjectures of the experts. The larger craft, the 
Iowa, the Indiana and Texas, having dismissed these troublesome tormen- 
tors with a few shots that seemed to paralyze their action, passed on leav- 
ing them as was supposed either useless, stripped of their terrors, or 
vulnerable. They attempted to make back for the protection of Morro 
when Commander Wainwright flung the puny Gloucester in their way 
and to the astonishment of the various seamen, who saw the short con- 
test, the ex-pleasure-yacht riddled the formidable destroyers and sunk 
them. This was due of course to the work already begun by the cruisers 
and battle ships, but at the same time the torpedoers might have reached 
Santiago and might have remained a menace, had Wainwright hesitated 
in attacking them. Commander Wainwright is credited with forcing the 
probable action of the torpedo-destroyers. He foresaw that they would 
linger behind the rest of the fleet in the hope of escaping unnoticed and 
thus to find their chance to sneak up on the battle ships and blow them 
out of the water. This is exactly what happened. The cruisers were at 
least two miles beyond the entrance when the two terrors emerged. The 
Gloucester was at the same time squarely in front of the fort steaming at 
a prodigious rate. The intrepidity of the action consisted, not only in 
the fact that the Gloucester ventured to stand before the two terrors, but 
from the first made squarely at them, firing her guns with as much con- 
fidence as if they were the " railway " missiles of her colossal seamates, 
the Oregon, or the Texas. One of the officers directing the guns on the 
Gloucester, embodies the spirit, the movement, the actuality of the con- 
test so succinctly, that it would be a deprivation to omit his picture of 
the scene : 

"I must have been pulling the trigger twelve times a minute. How 



226 PLUCKY INDIVIDUALITY. 

many of the shells reached the mark I do not know ; some, certainly. To 
catch the effect of a shot while other guns are belching forth smoke and 
shell all around, is beyond the power of the human eye. The marvel is 
how under such trying circumstances we managed to hit anything besides 
sky and water. Like the roar of a distant storm, came the boom of the 
heavy guns of the fleet firing at the four cruisers. I am not certain that 
I even heard them ; every faculty was concentrated on the Furor and 
the Pluton. The Indiana had been at our side at the start and had fired 
her secondary battery at long range at the destroyers, but she, like the 
rest, had slipped away in search of larger prey, leaving us to fight it out 
with the two redoubted torpedo-boats, the terrors of the naval world. By 
an unprejudiced outsider we would hardly have been considered a match 
for one of the little black vessels. We, however, were more conceited, 
and thought ourselves a match for both together." 

Luck, the phantastic, almost humorous luck that attended all our essays, 
presided over this Gargantuan combat. A shell not a millionfold as fierce 
or destructive as thousands that had passed into, above and about our 
happy-go-lucky fleet, fell in the right place on the Spanish destroyer, and 
the end had come. She could be seen rising in a dismantled mass on the 
boiling waters, and then there was the spray of a gigantic fountain, and 
the Gloucester, much to her own surprise, had conquered a craft that 
under proper conditions ought to have destroyed her as soon as seen. 
This was the Pluton. Then the Furor made for the inexpugnable Yankee, 
or seemed to, for as it was afterward learned, the wretched vessels were 
unable to control themselves, and another luck}'' shot ended her agonizing 
efforts to bring her deadly weapons into use. In one sense, the enterprise 
of Wainwright was as desperately daring as Hobson's, for a pleasure craft 
turned into the semblance of a fighting ship, is but a poor resource at 
best. In this instance, it was the Paul Jones like ardor of Wainwright 
and the impetuous pluck of the men behind the guns, that decided the 
result. A contest which evoked far more comment and applause on the 
other side of the water, where war-making and slaughter curiously enough 
rival the finest fruits of civilization in peaceful forms. In the navy of 
this and other countries, Wainwright is secretly regarded as the "pluck- 
iest" individuality discovered among the noble adventurers of our sea 
campaign. 

Her vengeful work done, the Gloucester became the harbor of the vic- 
tims of the entire Spanish fleet; running all along the wreck-strewn shore, 
the indomitable commander gathered up the debris of Cervera's ships. 
The wounded were carefully fished up and tenderly cared for on the decks 



THE MOMENTOUS DRAMA. 227 

which but a few moments before had been spitting death upon the Span- 
iards. 

It is of course understood that no one pair of eyes could see all the mo- 
mentously thrilling drama that went on in the pellucid sunshine of the 
Santiago coast, during the immortal three hours the ships of the republic 
wrought destruction upon the most vaunted of Spain's armadas. For, 
while we have been following the victorious efforts of the Iowa, the 
Brooklyn, the Texas, the Oregon and the Indiana were plying the same 
deadly prowess ; manifesting the same implacable purpose and executing 
these arbitrarily imposed parts with equal address. For nearly a half 
century, volumes on volumes are in evidence attempting to reproduce the 
successive phases of various naval battles— Aboukir, Trafalgar, Copen- 
hagen. The student of war history almost shrinks before the bibliography 
of the naval combats of the Civil War. Yet none of these concentrated 
so much of the mastery of condition, so much of the spirit of valor, 
grounded in science, as the superhuman three hours' work at Santiago— 
in which as Commodore Schley finely said— "there was glory enough for 
all" —without any of the aftermath of disputatious elucidation that fol- 
lows the common efforts of great men and daring spirits. 

To illustrate— what impresses itself, on readers of any absorbing action, 
is the contradiction of even visual testimony. An old sailor who had 
been in the navy half a century— whose time expired a month before the 
combat with Cervera's fleet, who in pure love of battle, insisted on re- 
maining with Commodore Schley, asserts, that he saw with his own eyes, 
the shot from the Oregon winch ended the torpedo boat— the Pluton. 
Now official reports and outside corroboration, assign the vital work of 
destruction to the Gloucester ! The ancient mariner, however, avers that 
a thirteen-inch shell from the Oregon "hit the middle" of the Spanish 
craft and that she " doubled up like a jack knife." The same picturesque 
Plutarch describes the Oregon as a -wonder." His garrulity has value 
among the human documents essential to the study of the men and the 
action. He declares that "every drop of oil on the Oregon was poured 
into the furnaces and the flames roared from her smokestacks " during the 
chase. He was within two feet of Yeoman Ellis when this single victim 
of the fight was killed. He heard Schley say : " Ellis, find the range of 
that ship." Ellis stepped out of a group of sailors to obey, just as a shell 
came aboard, which "took his head off his shoulders so quickly that his 
body did not fall for a second." Several sailors had time to step forward 
and catch the body before it started to fall ! This mariner, Burns, insists 
that the public may not know who whipped Cervera, but the officers and 



228 SCHLEY AND HIS MEN. 

men of the fleet know ! «' You have got to sail with a man to know him. 
When Schley was congratulated he said: 'Don't congratulate me, con- 
gratulate my crews.' If Schley were to sail through hell his men would 
follow him to a man. He doesn't devote himself to chasing unarmed ves- 
sels for prize money." 

Bearing on the destruction of the torpedo craft, another ej T e\vitness 
adds to the riddle which promises volumes of controversy. Lieutenant 
Dawson, of the Indiana, wrote home, before he could have heard of any 
dispute in the matter: " We began firing about 9:40 and headed for the 
leading Spaniard ; he had more speed than we had on, however, and 
steamed along the coast to the westward, firing at us pretty hard, but 
hitting nothing but water. Then came the second, and third, and so on, 
all firing rapidly but wildly. A number of their shells whistled close to 
our ears, and it was pretty hot for some time; but we were hit only once 
in the whole battle: that was by a small shell, or fragment of a big one, 
on the after thirteen-inch turret. Our shooting was good and we could 
see some of our larger shells strike the Spaniards. When the destroyers 
came out we concentrated most of our fire on them, as we were behind 
the others ; then the Gloucester came up at full speed, and also engaged 
the two destroyers from the rear, or rather their port side. They would 
have demolished the little Gloucester, but for us, for they had fourteen* 
pounder guns against her six-pounders, and they also had speed. They 
were particularly dangerous on account of the latter quality, and because 
of their torpedoes, so we used all our guns for awhile, big and little against 
them. Presently one showed a big cloud of smoke pouring from her; 
she was struck and a magazine was exploded. Then another and an- 
other, showed her boiler blowing up. She was gone now, and they steered 
her into the nearest point, and abandoned her. The other suffered the 
same fate, and sank alongside the beach, in a little cove near by. Both the 
* destroyers ' were destroyed, and all hands were relieved." 

Supplementing these by evidences that fell under the eyes of "gunner" 
Murphy of the Gloucester, it will be seen that history finds it difficult to 
discriminate, to dogmatically assert anything beyond specific results. 
The gunner declares: "The two great destroyers were left for us on 
board of the Gloucester. We started for them at full speed, amid a 
shower of shot and shell from the forts and ships and torpedo-boats, but 
we returned the shot and shell with right good will. I was firing at the 
rate of twenty shells a minute from my gun, and I know I must have 
killed a good many men, but God will forgive me, for it was my duty. 
We kept firing at each other as fast as we could, for about thirty minutes. 




COMMANDKK RlCHAKD WAIXWRKiHT. 



Captain F. J. HiGGrNsoi 




Captain F. A. Cook. 



Captain F E. Chadwick 



THE MAGAZINES. 231 

By this time all the other ships were off in the distance, keeping up their 
own fight, and left us to fight the two of them alone. 

kk One of the torpedo-boats headed right for us to torpedo us, and the cap- 
tain gave orders for very rapid fire, and instead of trying to get out of their 
way we ran right up toward them and rained shells on their decks in such 
a fashion that they could not send a torpedo. I was told by one of the 
prisoners afterward, that they tried eleven crews at the torpedo gun, but 
they were swept from the deck by our shells as fast as they got up there. 
He said our shells came pouring in through the engines and all about the 
ship, and finally one exploded in and blew up the magazine. Then she 
began to sink and hoisted the white flag. Talk about a crew going wild, 
you ought to have seen us, we jumped up in the air and we gunners shook 
hands with each other and yelled ourselves hoarse and threw our hats in 
the air. Oh, it was a great moment, but suddenly the other destroyer 
came heading toward us. We sighted our guns with that exulting feel- 
ing of victory, and rained such a hail of shells on her decks and through 
her everywhere, that we forced her to run right up on the beach and hoist 
the white Hag. We lowered our boats to rescue all we could, and out of 
the two crews of a hundred and forty men there were only sixteen men 
left alive to save. Their decks were a terrible sight to behold. The dead 
were strewn all about and burning up with the ships. It seemed each of 
the boats had about one hundred holes. When we returned to the ship 
one of them went down to come up no more. We captured both their 
flags." 

An episode in the closing moments of this stupendous combat aroused 
a good deal of comment throughout the press of the country. Captain 
Philip of the Texas, as has been narrated, when the firing ceased, called 
his crew about him to make acknowledgment that he believed in God ! 
His action was viewed variously by the world. The general conclusion 
was that as Captain Philip had deemed it expedient to make the acknowledg- 
ment, the other commanders on tjie victorious ships were without his belief ! 
The world had mocked the old king of Prussia when from the battlefields 
of France he had reported the continuing intervention of God in the daily 
slaughter of men. Cromwell and the Puritan commanders were wont to 
identify God with the sanguinary triumphs of brothers over brothers. 
Military commanders have not unfrequently interpolated an expression 
of recognition of divine favor in the slaughter of enemies. During the 
Civil War, President Lincoln proclaimed days of prayer and devotion to 
acknowledge the interposition of God both in victory and defeat. But 
Captain Philip's words were new in warfare. . . . They charmed 



232 "THOU SHALT NOT KILL." 

certain militant churchmen and journalists, who looked upon the scene as 
impressively illustrative of the devout spirit in which the war was waged. 

Naturally, from praise of Philip there grew a comminatory tone toward 
the captains of the fleet who had neglected to inform the sweltering crews 
that they believed in God. The men thus inculpated were placed in a 
very embarrassing plight. Usually it is not considered part of a man's 
duty, either in peace or war, to make proclamation of his beliefs. Indeed, 
to the man really indoctrinated with the teachings of Christ, there is 
something inexpressibly repulsive in associating divinity with the bar- 
barity of war. The pirates in old times in the Caribbean Sea, were wont 
to drop on their knees in prayer before sallying out to murder the victims 
thrown in their way by the winds and waves. The Sultan of Turkey 
offered prayer in the mosque of St. Sophia in Constantinople, whenever a 
more than usually destructive slaughter was reported from Armenia. 
The thinking and humane, regard war as criminal at best ; they eschew 
therefore the identification of deity in the purely selfish and baser pas- 
sions of the races, engendered by war. Certainly, if General Sherman's 
aphorism "war is hell," be the condensation of the world's judgment, the 
moment of victory, amid the shrieks of the dying and mangled seems 
a hideously unfit time to invoke the embodiment of peace on earth 
and good will to men. If "thou shalt not kill" be a commandment, how 
can we invoke the utterer of the injunction to witness our disregard of 
the mandate? Indeed, to the humane, if there were ever a time when 
the closet seems a fitting place for communion with the Most High, it 
is on the scene of battle after man has wreaked his worst on man. 

One of the most brilliant, most capable, most chivalrous of the fleet 
captains was specially singled out by the Tartuffe Pharisees, who seized 
Captain Philip's eccentric display as a text. This officer, Captain Robley 
Evans, is endowed with every quality that makes man lovable to his 
kind. He is brave as the ideal of valor, modest, consistent, exemplary in 
every relation in life and as a warrior counted a Bayard. He felt called 
upon to defend his position and the utterance is worth preserving. The 
editor of the criticising journal having sent a marked copy to Captain 
Evans, he wrote: 

"I am somewhat at a loss to know whether you sent it for the purpose 
of calling my attention to the cuss words attributed to me in the news- 
papers, or to Captain Philip's official show of Christian spirit in announc- 
ing to his men on the quarter deck of the Texas after the battle of San- 
tiago, that he believed in Almighty God. As, however, you have seen fit 
to drag my name into your newspaper I hope that you will publish this 



234 



CAPTAIN EVANS' STATEMENT. 



reply that those who have read your issue of July 15 may also read what 
I have to say about it. 

" I have never considered it necessary, and I am sure that a great ma- 
jority of officers in the navy do not consider it necessary, to announce to 
their crews that ' they believe in Almighty God.' I think that goes with- 
out saying. We, each of us, have the right to show by our acts how 
much we are imbued with this belief. Cnptain Philip had a perfect right 
to show this to his men as he did ; it was simply a matter of taste. 

"Now, for myself, shortly after the Spanish cruiser Vizcaya had struck 
her colors, and my crew had secured the guns, the chaplain of the ship, an 




NAVAL BARRACKS AT ANNAPOLIS. 
Admiral Cervera's residence while a prisoner of war. 

excellent man, came to me and said, 'Captain, shall I say a few words of 
thanks to Almighty God for our victory ? ' I said : l By all means do so ; 
I will have the men sent aft for that purpose,' and was on the point of 
doing so when it was reported to me that a Spanish battle ship was stand- 
ing toward us from the eastward. My first duty to God and my country 
was to sink this Spanish battle ship, and I immediately made preparations 
to do so. When it was discovered that this ship was an Austrian, I found 
my ship surrounded by boats carrying dying and wounded prisoners, and 




Brig. -General Leonard "Wood. 



Ma.tor-Genkral S P>. M. Young. 




Major-General H. W. Lawton. 



Major-General John C. Bates. 



LET US LAVISH HONORS. 287 

others of the crew of the Vizcaya to the number of two hundred and fifty. 
To leave these men suffer for want of food and clothing while I called my 
men aft to offer prayers was not my idea of either Christianity or reli- 
gion. I preferred to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, and succor the 
sick, and I am strongly of the opinion that Almighty God has not put a 
black mark against me on account of it. I do not know whether I shall 
stand with Captain Philip among the first chosen in the hereafter, but I 
have this to say in conclusion that every drop of blood in my body on the 
afternoon of the 3d of July was singing thanks and praises to Almighty 
God for the victory we had won." 

Congress awards medals, and in every conceivable form distinguishes 
the titular chiefs of our navies and armies, but it is a heart-breaking 
reflection to count the oblivion of the real architects of victory. A 
Wellington or a Marlborough, wasting their time in a riotous debauchery, 
up to — even during the opening horrors of a decisive battle, are made 
princes, awarded pensions, that descend to imbecile and profligate 
progeny, but the plain citizen who marches by day and night, who bears 
as he can, who encounters all that is hideous in life, in a campaign — 
receives no token. He is "the army," the " army fought well." But the 
horses, the guns and the ordnance are likewise " the army." And yet, 
who stops to count the infinite horrors of the normal life of the sailor — 
the soldier ? For my part I cannot be made to comprehend, how men 
can be induced to enlist on the ship of to day. The slave crews of the 
Roman triremes, endured a life that makes the heart throb, but their 
miseries were joys compared to the routine of the tar on our iron wonders. 
And what wage can pay a man for this? Let us then lavish honors ; let 
us reverently bow and give him of our best; let us make him know that 
the empty conventions of rank cannot eclipse our heartfelt admiration of 
his heroism — which is not evoked or illustrated during the hour of battle 
only, but every instant he is in durance on the engines civilized man has 
invented for the torture, crucifixion and destruction of civilized men. 

One of the endearing traits in Admiral Schley, is his constant, almost 
religious reference to the fleet's glories, to the nameless thousand, buried 
in the torments of the modern ship. One of his standing orders is con- 
stantly repeated by the loquacious tar — " Keep your men below constantly 
informed of what the ship is doing" — Schley admonished his captains. 
So, instant by instant, during the battle the devoted martyrs pouring 
sweat — sometimes blood — were electrified by the inspiring word, " the 
Oquendo is giving up; the Vizcaya is knocked out"; and thus on to the 
end of the glorious chapter. Yet if this grimy brawn and muscle had 
13 



288 THE RANK AND FILE. 

faltered; if the mere human had given away to the infirmities of 
flesh and bone, the Spanish fleet would not have been crushed. The 
science of the captains, the accomplishments of the staff would have 
availed nothing. 

To the intelligence that had been given the opportunity to examine and 
contrast, there was no spectacle so sublime as the interior — the deeps of 
any one of the fleet. It will be many a long year, please God, before the 
world will see this republic recurring to the barbarism of war, and to put 
that hateful time off it is well to know minutely what the cost of victory 
is. It is well to know the Hadean torments that the men who win 
victory undergo on those beautiful monsters, that we admire so com 
placently in our harbors. The air, the life giving unction of the sea — the 
sun itself — is denied to the men who make victory possible. The big 
eight inch turret guns could not have done their deadly shooting, even 
with the trained eyes guiding them, had not the men below sent up the 
ammunition ; and the vessel could not have kept side by side with the 
enemy had it not been for the engineer and fireroom force, working 
below the deck like demons. The men in the turrets of five inches of 
steel see as little as the men below deck, save, that once in a while they 
get a glimpse of the object fired at. 

When the ships of Cervera were sighted coming out on that memorable 
July morning, the eight-inch and five-inch guns on Admiral Schley's ship 
were all loaded, and in each turret within two minutes after the summons, 
eleven men stood half naked awaiting the word to fire. The chief of the 
turret, a lieutenant, in the hood, his eye to the telescope, gets the line of 
his gun on the harbor, and awaits the signals. "Five thousand yards 
cries an orderly in a turret opening and the gun goes up to the proper 
elevation, as the lieutenant in the hood orders the elevating gear turned. 
The No. 1 man at the guns connects the electric wire to t he primer, with 
the hood's handfiring apparatus, and all is waiting. "Commence firing" 
comes the order, and the shot is sped. The turret lieutenant's hand 
closes on the electric apparatus and the gun jumps back a foot or more as 
a hundred and ten pounds of exploding powder drives a two hundred and 
fifty pound shell from the muzzle of the piece at a rate of 2,080 feet per 
second. Then before the roar has ceased the hand of the man in the 
turret touches the electric lever and the 700 tons of steel move with 
velocity and almost noiselessly around until the other gun of the twin is 
in the same position as the first one has been. 

Slowly the muzzle comes up to the directed elevation ; once more the 
fingers close on the electrio handle, and another two hundred and fifty 



"COXEY'S ARMY." 239 

pounds of steel shoot away on its death errand. Hardly had gun No. 1 
belched forth its defiance to the Spanish ships, when the five men behind 
it, until now as impassive as marble figures, spring into life. No. 2 opens 
the breech, washes off the mushroom and gas check with a sponge, oils 
the breech plug, extracts the exploded primer, and sees the vent cleaC. 
No. 4 seizes the long bristled sponge wet with water and assisted by No 
3 sponges the gun, lays aside the sponge and seizes the rammer ready to 
drive home the new charge. While they are working there appears at 
the top of the ammunition hoist new shells and new ammunition, and the 
officer in command of the turret cries, "load." No 5 raises the ammu- 
nition corner of the hoist, and with the assistance of No. 5 of the other 
gun, grasps the handles upon the carriage and swings it to the rear of the 
gun. The projectile is first on the lift, and No. 3 adjusts the primer 
while No. 4 assisted by No. 6 rams home the two hundred and fifty pound 
projectile. Then in quick succession, No. 4, No. 5, and 6 ram in the two 
charges of powder in packages of fifty -five pounds, each done up in serge 
or muslin, and in grains weighing an ounce and a quarter each. No. 2 
closes the breech, No. 1 again connects the wire, and the gun is ready to 
fire. All this takes just four minutes, and with two guns, the turret is 
shooting once every two minutes. 

Down below the water line of the ship, beneath the protective deck, 
that in so many battles has proved the lid to the coffin of hundreds, is a 
naked perspiring crowd, of titans, their eyes closed to the scene of battle, 
but there senses alive to the fact that torpedo or shell below, or through 
the armor means instant death. The third of July they sent up to the 
various turrets and guns over 70,000 pounds of ammunition. The men de- 
tailed in the handling rooms are from the fifth, or powder division, com- 
posed of those not detailed as gun crews, such as carpenters, and 
gunner's mates, servants, idlers of all kinds, and the relief watch of the 
engineer's division. This medley of men is of many nationalities, and is 
known on board the Brooklyn for example as " Coxey's Army." It is 
commanded by the senior deck officer, Dr. Griffin, with four or five other 
officers as assistants, each assistant having charge of a section of about 
forty or fifty men, the whole division taking charge of all the magazine 
holds and all spaces between decks during action. At the clang of the 
alarm for "general quarters," the men rush for their stations, struggling 
through a small steel hatch in the protective deck, and down a narrow 
and almost vertical ladder to the magazines and shell rooms below. The 
officer in charge, Dr. Griffin, hurries to the cabin for the magazine keys, 
grabs a small leather bag containing them, from the hand of the marine 



240 "QUICK, LADS, LIVELY NOW." 

orderly on duty at the door of the Captain's cabin, and rashes after his 
men, distributing the keys as rapidly as he can to those already standing 
at the box-like tops of the magazines, the bolts of which had already 
been loosened. The ammunition bearers are quickly let out, the men 
standing with their hands on a small lever ready to turn on the current 
of the electric hoists, as soon as the hatches are off. When everything is 
seen to be clear, the endless chains of the hoist start with the whir of a 
motor, and roll their loads of rapid fire ammunition to the decks above, 
where men are stationed to receive it. 

Down the chute of the ten-inch gun turret, as an accompaniment to 
the deep rumble of the turret itself, as it slowly swings from amidships 
to the port or starboard comes the command, "Full charge, common 
shot?" from the officer in command of the turret. The answer quickly 
goes back, " Aye, aye, sir," and as a response to a lower tone of voice, 
"Quick, lads, lively now," up come the long powder tanks and heavy 250 
pound shell to the base of the turret. There the shell is seized in tongs 
by two nimble apprentices, raised and rammed home in the car ; the tops 
of the long copper powder tanks taken off and the powder in two sections 
placed in the other compartments of the car, the signal given, and both 
cars quickly rise to the breech of the turret guns and are sent back al- 
most as swiftly, emptied. All this preparation of getting ready, occupies 
a space of four minutes after all the men and the hatches are lowered 
and secured. The heat varies in this steel cage from 120 to 146 degrees 
Fahrenheit and soon causes the men to strip to the waist and settle down 
to their work in an air tight box obeying orders with alacrity, not know- 
ing the cause of the outbreak, whether target practice, bombardment, 
the Spanish fleet, or a false alarm. On this crucifixion of body and nerves 
comes the report of the first gun, followed in quick succession by another, 
telling of the deadly purpose. Down the hoists and chutes rush the 
powder and smoke to add to the already high temperature of the hand- 
ling room, followed by the hot saltpetre water, from the sponging of the 
guns, making the decks slippery and burning blisters on the bare backs 
of the men underneath, who, groping and choking, feeling their way 
through the dense smoke, go silently and obediently about their work, 
with but one thought and aim in view, to keep those continually empty 
hoists and cars filled with powder and projectiles, not knowing how the bat- 
tle is going, until a cheer is finally heard from deck, their spirit brightens 
and an old hand at the work, exclaims, " I guess they must have hit 'em 
that time." 

But all this and a thousand pages more as explicit and circumstantial, 



"WAR IS HELL." 



241 



do not tell the tale of the mute inglorious heroes who bring about the 
supreme national joy we call victory. For in the fabrication of the 
beautiful ships we take such pride in, man is degraded to his lowest state 
— the machine. Go into the ship yards, the armor furnaces, any or all of 
the primary conditions of a modern war vessel and it will be easy to com- 
prehend that " War is hell." Money could not pay, glory could not lure, 
the man, to such a service as the war of to-day implies ; yet, the republic 
can at any hour summon, and innumerable millions are ready. It is this 
aspect, that arrests the attention of the philosophic. Had President Mc- 
Kinley called for six million volunteers instead of 200,000 — they would 
have been forthcoming, and in the stress and storm of incompetency, 
greed and diabolism, the placid folk would have borne and foreborne, 
fought and died — because every man of our seventy millions has a right 
in himself, and when he fights — fights as he believes for his hearthstone. 




V 

A CORNER IN MORRO CASTLE. 



"•4&L 



n. 

THERE are few problems more perplexing to the annalist, than solving 
the causes of the effect of phenomena — similar in circumstances but 
disproportionate in the forces involved. The most difficult of all is to 
account rationally for the effect and results of certain battles. The com- 
paratively few shots fired at Concord, Lexington, and Bunker Hill, are 
known to everybody who has any familiarity with the origin of the repub- 
lic, while the greater and more decisive battles of Saratoga and Trenton 
are known only to the student. Similarly in the Civil War, everybody 
knows of the firing on Sumpter and Bull Run, while very few know even 
vaguely of the frightful combats of Antietam, Malvern Hill, or Fred- 
ericksburg. 

It is probably ascribable to the condition of the public mind— the 
"psychologic moment" as Bismarck once described it— that the first en- 
gagements in Cuba — resulting from the somewhat heedless landing of a 
battalion of marines, stimulated as much agitation all over the land, as a 
pitched battle, with the losses reaching into tens of thousands. The ex- 
pedition was undertaken to appease journalistic clamor— primarily— 
though ostensibly to prepare the way for the seizure of the city and 
harbor of Santiago, where Cervera's fleet had found shelter. The narra- 
tive of the landing of the marines, their strangely inhuman exposure to 
the ambuscaded guerillas, on a densely wooded plateau, was received by 
the country with something of the incredulous anger, that followed the 
massacre of Ball's Bluff, while the rebellion was in its first stages. With 
great armies in campaigns, the incident would have passed unobserved, 
but the daily bulletins following the inexplicable manosuver, gave the 
country painful ap^nension. It seemed an augury of fatally feeble 
council at headquarters, and the press which clamored most vociferously 
for action, was most vehement in scarifying those responsible for the 
butchery. The incident was of no consequence save in so far that it 
compelled, the impugned strategist in Washington, to a diversion. It was 
apparently felt that the army must do something, or the country would 
revolt from the agencies in control. In a military sense, the possession 
of Guantanamo and its waters, would add nothing to the effectiveness of 
a campaign against Havana. 

(243) 



244 



HOME STRATEGISTS. 



But there were reasons of a military character, that forbade the attack 
upon the capital of the island, before the fever season had come to an 




LOADING A TRANSPORT FOR SANTIAGO. 

end. Santiago was less liable to the ravages of the plague, and it was 
suddenly determined to despatch the only force available for active opera- 



HOME STRATEGISTS. 246 

tions to that point and attempt the reduction of the city. For weeks the 
tension was grotesquely out of proportion to the forces involved. Euro- 
pean opinion flashed back to our millions daily by the cable, made much 
of the adventure — which as the concurrent expression ran, verified the 
prophesies of our inimical critics. We were admitted to have men of ap- 
proved bravery, but they were sacrificed by blind misuse. Then, after in- 
explicable miscalculations, the flower of our army — the legions of the re- 
gulars — destined once more to illustrate their unrivaled efficiency, sailed 
to invest Santiago. 

Naturally, with press boats swarming in the vicinity of every semblance 
of an expedition, rumors in ten thousand bewildering notes of exaltation, 
apprehension, vainglory, and twaddle, preceded every stir. Volumes of 
description, fixing the forces to the minutest detail, were sent broadcast. 
Pictures of stupendous armadas, stretching for thirty miles over the 
Caribbean waters with towering battle craft, flanking the line, were read 
from Maine to Oregon, hours before it was known where this wandering 
mass meant to strike. Not less stirring pictures filled the press, when the 
ships came to a halt under the guns of Admiral Sampson's fleet fronting 
Santiago. Then the home strategist knew what was coming. Shafter's 
army was to conquer the enemy by merely landing; it was to present a 
mass of marching men to the beleaguered Spaniards, and conquest would 
follow. But men alone do not make an army — courage alone cannot 
conquer Mauser rifles. A full week of alternating hope and despair 
followed. 

Santiago, properly garrisoned and intelligently defended, is as strong as 
Havana. When General Shafter's army scrambled over the deadly hills, 
through the vengeful cactus, it was a more imposing citadel than the 
Saragossa that held Napoleon's best corps at bay for nearly a year; it was 
tenfold stronger than the cities carried only by seige operations in any 
European war of the last hundred years. And though the science of in- 
vention has increased the destructiveness of arms, General Shafter's 
superiority in resources were more than offset by the Spanish possession 
of the Mauser rifle, one of first form of that mysterious arm, that won 
Prussia her primacy in Europe. The audacious decisiveness of the fleets 
had demoralized popular judgment. It was held intolerable that Shafter 
should let a day — two days pass, without unfurling the Federal flag over 
the Spanish strong place! The soldiery themselves seem to have caught 
this spirit; without any of the precautions that precede advance in an 
enemy's country, the darlings of the public, the Rough Riders, or rather 
the squadrons accompanying the expedition, were vaguely despatched to 



246 PUBLIC CLAMOR FOR HASTE. • 

" do something." The weather was a mingling of the fumes of a furnace 
and the humidity of a steam bath. 

Goaded by the clamors of the press, the cabinet and its war council 
finally yielded to the outcry. The country — or rather the strategists at 
large, so to speak, reckoned on an attack upon Havana. That was the 
chief city of the island. It was likewise the citadel of the Spanish 
strength, the symbol of its authority in the West. It held the chief of 
the Spanish armies, and its capture would mean the end of the war. But 
it was believed that Captain-general Blanco had at his disposal from 
100,000 to 150,000 well armed and effective soldiers. The fortifications 
had been strengthened by all the available modern appliances. The city 
was reckoned invulnerable to the fleet through its deadly array of land 
batteries, even admitting that Sampson had as heroic a contempt for 
mines and submarine defences as Farragut used to show. 

But even the most vehement advocates of instant action did not go so 
far as to urge the entrance of the navy into a channel made memorable 
by the destruction of the Maine. A landing might be secured within 
striking distance, where by the aid of the fleet the new army might preen 
its wings for victorious flight to the capital ! It was set forth too, that 
the insurgents would prove a tower of strength to the invading columns; 
that familiar with every wood road and mountain path, they would be 
able to lead our forces to the decisive points, saving them the wearing 
reconnoissances which inure men for the shock of battle. From the 
opening of hostilities there had been an incomprehensible cessation of the 
glorification of the ''patriots," which had been the daily dole of the jingo 
presses. Though the Spaniards were naturally compelled to lessen their 
forces at important strategic points, there were no more lurid pictures of 
" patriot victories " — in fact the instant war was declared, the lover of 
Cuban liberty forgot the Cubans as completely as the mummer forgets 
his mask when the play is done. 

There was something like stupefaction when the news flashed home- 
ward that the first serious landing on Cuban soil had been made at an 
obscure hamlet on the coast near Santiago. For a week or ten days the 
name Camp McCalla at the head of the despatches, warned the reader that 
large drafts were making on his credulity. The despatches narrating the 
landing of 600 marines, with two days and nights of out-post incivilities 
on the part of the enemy, surpassed in volume and comminatory invective, 
all that was ever said or sung of the army in Flanders. Just why the six 
hundred were landed at the point chosen, what service they could perform 
other than displaying the flag of the republic and distressing the amour 










^ 






248 CAMP McCALLA. 

propre of the scantily clad Spaniard by their lavish raiment, neither official 
report nor press prescience ever revealed. But the incident, though triv- 
ial, made a significantly distinct impression on the public mind, clearly 
shown in the temper of the speech of the multitude as reflected in the 
press, and the public places where talk is wont to be free in times of 
public excitement. 

Bombardments by the fleet at divers points, were made much of, by 
the newspapers. The corps of skilled writers who had been impressed 
into the service of journalism, losing the sense of perspective in the ex- 
egencies of news, magnified what was little more than target practice into 
momentous, long-studied parts of a general whole. Perhaps the most in- 
comprehensible of the many diversions of this nature, was the strange at- 
tempt at Guantanamo. The harbor is capacious, but unless the point 
were designed for a base, there seemed no possible use in sacrificing a life 
to hold the shores, or any point of them. Yet for ten days the country 
was kept in sickening tension over bewildering reports of desperate valor 
on the part of a band of 600 marines, set ashore — no one knew exactly 
for what purpose, nor does any one know to this day. It was given out, 
with apparent authority, that the movement was an idea of Admiral 
Sampson's, who for prudential reasons Avas making sure of a refuge for his 
fleet, in case his ships were separated by the sea blizzards that sweep the 
Cuban littoral in those waters. The harbor of Guantanamo, though not 
spacious, would afford the fleet ample security in the event of disaster 
before Santiago. The marines have of late years become an interesting 
body to the whole people. The naval reserve, indeed shares with the 
veteran tars, the liking and admiration of the whole people. Their trim 
ranks, their jaunty ways, their engaging and artless ardor for war, have 
been the mingled raillery and delight of the multitude since the Civil 
War proved that they are as intrepid as they are ingenuous. That a 
body of these should be sent on shore to confront the lures and artifices 
of a solidiery practiced in years of the guile, ambuscade and skirmish, 
struck the least censorious as an inhuman heedlessness on the part of the 
responsible strategists. Tens of thousand of men, infinitely more useful, 
even though not trained soldiers, were eating their hearts out with im- 
patience, in the scores of rendezvous, who would have delighted in the 
danger of camp McCalla ; men who would have prevented the useless 
slaughter of the first nights and clays succeeding the landing. Skirmish- 
ing in the tangled woods, and safe guarding exposed camps, are a part of 
war that a body of marines is grotesquely unfitted for. Standing up in 
open fight and firing with regularity and preci&ion, no infantry or cavalry 



250 MUTILATION BY MAUSER BULLETS. 

could hold their own better in a tight place, but flung upon a covert,such 
as the ground at camp McCalla proved, the marines were at a criminal 
disadvantage. The effect on the country therefore, of the first sanguinary 
encounter, was not unlike the heartbreaking revolt that followed the 
slaughter at Big Bethel, or the disaster at Balls Bluff— in 1861-1862. 
The harrowing tale of perfectly useless slaughter, filled the telegrams for 
nearly a week ; day and night the young marines were held in a prepos- 
terous cul de sac of exterminating fire. They could not secure an hour 
for sleep during the night, nor rest during the day. Invisible enemies 
were on every side of them — save the sea. Indeed, the nearness of the 
gunboats alone saved the squandered battalions from capture or decima- 
tion. It was more the sentiment of the nation, watching this prelude, 
that gave the daily bulletin of misadventure space and importance, than 
the actual losses suffered. But for that matter, the engagement was pro- 
longed, wrenching the heart strings of the million. To intensify the ex- 
aggerated forebodings filling the public mind, historians of the dailies and 
weekly presses added, to give a more livid caste to the agony, that the re- 
covered bodies of the dead showed that they had been mutilated! Then 
the " patriotic " presses rose to their shrieking best or worst. Spain should 
weep in blood the miscreant inhumanity of her atrocious soldiery. All the 
stage horrors of the inquisition were made to reverberate ; the adminis- 
tration was commanded to do, and do at once, the most desperate and des- 
picable things. We had captured no end of astonished sea-faring folk 
sailing the seas, unconscious that war had been declared. Why not, it 
was hotly demanded — put these in noisome and dreadful cells — feed them 
on. the most wretched of fare, iron them with manacles! Indeed it was 
urbanely suggested that it would be a just retaliation to hang a few score 
of the compatriots of the wretches who had namelessly desecrated our 
dead marines. When the cold eye of science examined the alleged mutila- 
tions, and left no doubt that the hideous wounds, resembling mutilations 
were the normal effects of the Mauser, no intimation of this ever appeared 
in the "patriotic" press. To this day, very likely, seven in ten who read 
the first ghastly reports, and the inflammatory comments of the press, 
believe that the Spanish soldiery glutted their unspeakable vengeance on 
the dead. It was set forth in almost plaintive indignation that the Span- 
iards had "sneaked" upon the invaders and fired upon them, without a 
word of warning. When the confiding marines left their weapons stacked, 
and disposed themselves to breakfast, the faithless enem}^ beset them with 
volleys, from the neighboring coverts of chapparal, and held them at a dis- 
advantage. Indeed, it might have been supposed from the comments on 



A CORRESPONDENT'S STORY. 



251 



ihe early episodes of the war, that the mere apparition of "Old Glory" 
should have been the signal for the dispersion of the Spanish troops. It 
was set down to the malignity of the malevolent Spaniards that the cacti 
grew in ingovernable luxury; that it was deadly to touch and impossible 
to penetrate, save by the initiated. That the point of vantage chosen in 
the ardor of the first conquest, was ideally adapted to surprise and onset 




SPANISH SOLDIERS IN AMBUSH. 

from all sides save the bay, where the guardian gunboats offered retreat, 
if not protection. Yet this untenable camp and the gratification of keep- 
ing the flag flying over the rebellious soil, had in three days lost the navy 
more men than Dewey's conquest at Manila. In the rare intervals given 
by the enemy, the six hundred discussed the origin of the blunder, for 
from the first comprehension of the trap, the quick-witted marines knew 
that some one had blundered. Vague assurances came that the point was 
vital to the success of the invasion; that ten thousand regulars were 
speeding over the waters to release them, to extend the hard won con- 
quest. A correspondent of a Boston journal, who shared in the sangui- 
nary travesty, gives such humor as is to be extracted from the incident: 
"It is easier here than in the North, to sympathize with those who demand 
quick action of the army. It becomes a personal matter with correspond- 
ents. For weeks they have been tossed from one Caribbean port to an- 



252 BURYING THE DEAD. 

other, over the most distressing of seas, in a steamer built for still waters 
supplied as they are vividly aware, with a hydrographic forecast which 
says that six hurricanes are due this month in these latitudes. They go* 
ashore. Field pieces are being taken up the steep hill to the camp on top, 
and they grasp hold of the lines and pull with the rest. It is hot work: 
at the top, the major greets them, or the colonel ; his brown uniform is 
saturated with perspiration, bullets are flying, and the tents are being 
struck and hurried to the lea of the ridge ; and as one worn guard line is 
relieved by another not yet rested, men drop utterly played out, face 
upward on the bare hill, and immediately as if stricken, fall deeply 
asleep. Some ask for cigarettes; some eagerly tell of mutilations prac- 
ticed upon American dead by the ambushed guerrillas— the Cuban niggers 
—who side with Spain. 'Publish that,' they say, 'and let the world 
know the sort of men we are fighting.' It is too horrible for print. 
Sympathies are excited, however, before the word of the colonel and of 
the surgeon testifies that there were no mutilations. There is a funeral 
presently. Four bodies are sewn in canvas and placed in a trench on a 
hillside, and over the open grave, the first of our men in Cuban soil, the 
chaplain reads the brief commitment, and a full company fires two volleys 
in final leave taking. Then that afternoon the place all around is clamor- 
ous with volleys not religious, but discharged with blasphemous signs of 
anger. « Where is the enemy ? ' the officers ask. ' Twenty-seven thou- 
sand regulars will be here to-night or to-morrow,' is the answer, and it is 
repeated to the wan-eyed, hungry men for their encouragement. They 
are incredulous and will not cheer. But ' to-night' arrives, and still no 
transports on the horizon, no reinforcements from insurgents, although 
they too are hourly expected. Darkness settles down upon the hills and 
ambushed hollows. From three sides and seven places come shots from 
the invisible, indistinguishable enemy, and the Colt quick firers, which have 
no stop-mechanism, but pour in their hose stream of nickelled bullets, 
until their chambers are empty, they play upon every spot lighted by a 
Mauser flash. Little help is afforded by the searchlight of the Marble - 
head, twice we have to wigwag to her that she is revealing the American 
position, and, however lovely the stars and stripes on camp McCalla ap- 
pear, everybody knows that the pleasure is not equal to its possible cost. 
Suddenly, near the central earthworks, a man tumbles forward. " My 
God ! " is all he says, and when his features are made out by the powder 
flashes, he is recognized as Goode, the sergeant-major, blood flowing from 
a mortal hurt in the abdomen. Some men get wounded — the enemy is 
farther away and the Mauser bullets do not tear so much as the night be- 




Colonel Theodore Koosevelt. 



Major-General H. S. Hawkins. 




Major-General Wm. Ludlow. 



Major-General Adna R. Chaffee. 



THE WINSLOW AT CARDENAS. 255 

fore. Skies turn pale ; on the face of the men crouched in a rim round 
the hill crest, rifles covering every approach, there is a smoky, grimy, 
done -up look. Another guard is changed ; the young officers' chorus, 
4 Oh promise me' and inquire, 'did you say we had an army? Show 
it!" In comes Neville with his scouts — one missing, three wounded. 
Of the missing one it is said that he is only slightly hurt, but that still 
believing Spain's guerrillas had visited strange cruelties upon men dis- 
abled, he had jumped over the cliff into the sea, crying 'The hellions 
shan't get me ! ' They did not get him but his ' own people ' did at 
last, and there was again mi open grave and prayers and two blank 
volleys, and flags in the bay sunk to half mast." 

More, it seemed, to keep the public diverted, than to compass any 
material part in the contemplated campaign, spasmodic naval attacks were 
made at various obscure points of the Cuban coast. These were invaria- 
bly attended by the same phenomenal ardor on the part of the assailants, 
that signalized the more important engagements. But the price paid was 
in dolorous disproportion to the end gained. The work of blockading, 
is perhaps the most wearingly irksome of all the duties assigned seamen. 
It involves the alert readiness of actual battle, without the excitement of 
combat. The ship is obliged to be kept on the qui vive ; the men can 
secure but fitful rest. The tension in the end enervates to such an 
extent that prudent commanders are prompted to take precarious risks. 
Among the blockading divisions, we had a restless little squadron off 
Cardenas, an insignificant harbor of consequence only through its rela- 
tions with Matanzas and Havana. In the recesses of its bay, a fleet of 
Spanish gunboats found secure shelter. The commanded of the block- 
aders yearned to try his guns on the evasive craft, and to this end, sent 
the Winslow, an active but fragile vessel, to lure the enemy within reach 
of the fleet's batteries. 

Two small crafts accompanied the Winslow — which, catching sight of 
a Spanish gunboat near the dock made sure that it could be assaulted and 
cut out. The attacking trio rushed onward in ominous quietude until at 
a point in the middle of the harbor, the Winslow ran into a covey of 
buoys. The purpose of these for an instant absorbed the attention of the 
rash commander Lieutenant Bernadou. But there was not much time for 
speculation. A withering blast of shells began to fall on the deck of the 
vessel. The buoys were a cunning device to fix the range for the enemy's 
batteries on shore. The massacre was prompt and relentless : the wretched 
craft was completely in the Spaniards' power and in any other hands than 
those working her she would have surrendered at once. One missile fall* 
14 



256 



ENSIGN BAGLEY KILLED. 



ing square on the deck killed Ensign Bagley, wounded the commander, 
and so disabled the machinery that the little craft was helpless. But the 
devotion of the companion crews was equal to the emergency, the crip- 
pled ship was aided out of the harbor. The Spaniards were delirious 
with rapture. They had compelled the withdrawal of an invading fleet. 
Madrid beflagged itself ou the report, and for an instant drank all the in- 
toxicating joy of a conquest. 

It was not reassuring to the country to learn when the extent of the dis- 
aster became known, that the Navy Department had strongly disapproved 
of these sanguinary escapades. That the commanders, left largely to their 




LOADING A TORPEDO. 

own discretion were responsible for them ; that they had no part or pur- 
pose in the general scheme of invasion. The effect was painful to the 
country, for it revealed the almost naive ignorance of the generality in 
the calamitous gravity of war. Clearly it had been the universal belief 
that we were to assail the armies and fleets of Spain with no hurt to our 
men or ships! The incident gave the first well-grounded apprehension 
that matured plans were not controlling the operation of the fleets and to 
that extent prepared the public mind for graver disasters. But with the 



YOUNG BAGLEY CELEBRATED. 



257 



evidence of hierarchical uncertainty, the conviction became equally firm 
that the men might be trusted to make up for the ineptitude of the com- 
manders, for the fortitude and constancy of the Winslow's crew, were in 
stimulating keeping with the wonder work in Manila bay. These first 
tentatives of war were saluted with the reverent sympathy and ennobling 
testimonies that seem to come instinctively to a great people, in heart- 
touching episodes. Young Bagley was celebrated in the press, in Congress, 
everywhere that the quality of chivalry appeals to the sensibilities of men. 




LAUNCHING A TORPEDO. 

The Winslow was, perhaps, not one of the consummate efforts of the tor- 
pedo-boat species and her swift disablement went to confirm the growing 
conviction of experts, that this class of destroyers have enjoyed a delusive 
renown. For in the Manila combat, and the subsequent trial at Santiago, 
the most ordinary prudence with even inferior craft, were found equal to 
the certain destruction of these hitherto dreaded inventions. The ques- 
tion is by no means disposed of however, by the experience of this war — 
for our deadliest craft were not called upon where their resources could 
be fully tested. The Winslow w;is on a gridiron so to speak, doomed the 
instant she reached the point prearranged for the concentration of the 
Spanish fire. 



258 DEBARKATION OF SHAFTER'S ARMY. 

The army was debarked with every evidence of improvised material. 
By the favoring chance of clear weather at the very time storms were 
the rule, the soldiers were carried through the surf to the shore in front 
of a hamlet variously called Baiquiri and Daiquiri. No intimation had 
been given of the point selected for the landing of the army, and there 
was a fever of wild conjecture until Cervera's presence in Santiago bay 
suggested the value of that town for a military enterprise. The point 
selected, offered many advantages for the base of an army of invasion bent 
on a prize so tempting as the fleet of Cervera and the army of occupation. 
Furthermore, the town had the very appreciable advantage of cable com- 
munication with the continent, for the French line had its terminus there. 
But there the invitation ended — indeed nothing could well be "more un- 
inviting for the display of grand tactics or Napoleonic strategy, than the 
hideous sixteen miles of nature at its wildest, between Siboney and San- 
tiago. The land rises sheer from the sea, and buttresses two colossal 
ridges of the mountain plateaux, extending all along the coast, save 
where broken by spectral streams or yawning chasms. To make the 
roads passible for artillery, the whole army would be forced to turn into 
pioneer corps. Sherman's corduroying campaign in the Carolinas seemed 
an ordinary task compared to that confronting the men who were anxious 
only to fight, according to the daily asseveration of the newspaper Zenoph- 
ons ! 

It would exhaust chapter on chapter of even this generous volume, to 
set forth the multifarious needs of 15,000 men moved by ships, and from 
ships to a shore to all needs barren, for though the Spaniards nowhere 
and at no time discovered the genius of preparation, they were made fore- 
seeing in spite of themselves, by the chronic denudation of the country. 
The arrival at a decisive point of encounter inflamed the devouring greed 
of the press for action ! The wretched commander found the cable a 
curse — he was now within recriminative touch of the aulic council in 
Washington — but this he could have placated. The press could not be 
lulled ; it was clamorous for action. So, foodless, without guns of the de- 
cisive character implied by aggressive warfare, the heads of the columns 
were hurried forward toward the enemy. Veterans of the civil war heard 
the flamboyant acclamations of the press, the subdued approval of the hier- 
archies in Washington, with foreboding. We had seen futilities ot the 
same sort during the Civil War. Virginia was a thrice told tale of the 
adventures of Milroy, Hunter, Pope, Siegel, — passing prodigies in war 
making, who mistook a few thousand willing men for perfected armies. 

While the mas.s was gathering itself together gaily and confidently, the 



260 THE ROUGH RIDERS SET OUT. 

two squadrons of the Rough Riders that accompanied the expedition set 
out adventurously in the direction of the enemy and Santiago. There 
seems to have been no thought of the rudimentary operations of invasion 
— a careful reconnoissance of the country the army must pass over. 
There were bands of Cubans at the service of the general staff — men 
who presumably knew the routes or the surfaces capable of being made 
available for forward movements. But until a heavy cost had been ex- 
acted, their knowledge was not utilized. When the sagacious Sherman 
made his memorable excursion to the sea, his army was spread out like 
a vast fan, the tips separated at times by a distance of a hundred miles ; 
before these, rode concourses of cavalry so far in advance that if an enemy 
blocked the way at any point, the fan could fold up and be in superior 
force wherever the obstruction presented itself. This elementaiy prin- 
ciple seems to have been ignored or forgotten. The Rough Riders, brave 
to temerity, took no precaution to scour the thickets either immediately 
in front, in the path they were following, or the lateral spaces on either 
hand. Even a less enterprising foe than the Spaniard would have been 
inspired to sanguinary surprises by such unqualifiable laxity. 

Pushing gaily through the dense growth of chapparal— a hedge fash- 
ioned by nature more obstructive than the chevaux de /rise of the mili- 
tary engineer, the thin column was beset when out of reach of support, 
by bands of invisible ambuscaders. The volleys crackling from dense 
curtains of green, where no smoke gave a clue to the point of danger, 
forced the only tactics in such a case — a futile charge. The Rough Riders 
proved that they were of the stuff fine soldiers are made of. They did 
not break in a panic, as better disciplined soldiers have done when caught 
at the same disadvantage. The scion of a family of distinction was one 
of the first victims. When the news reached New York, tenfold impor- 
tance was given the skirmish — indeed there was an outburst of larmoyant 
sympathy, such as salutes mishaps to royalty in older societies. That, 
the elect of all the troops, the Rough Riders, should have been victims of 
inconsiderate haste in moving, seemed doubly derelict to the million who 
were regarding the war as an opera box spectacle. 

But it must be said for the men of the regiment engaged, they never 
took themselves so seriously. They in fact did not quite realize what the 
meaning of soldier was. They had the vague, inborn, unquestioned 
patriotism implied in George Eliot's noble line : " That hour (to the sol- 
dier) is regal when first he goes on guard ! " The athletes and hunters, 
the cow boys and social amphytrions enlisted, just as they would have 
joined a polo club or a " Wild West " hunt, or any opportunity for manly 



THE ROUGH RIDERS' FIGHT. 261 

adventure. They accepted readily the direful monotony and half menial 
camp duties, incident to soldiering, with good-natured tolerance, but 
they seemed to think that when battle was in prospect, they were free to 
seek it wherever it was to be found. Hence they met the bloody reprisal 
with buoyant equanimity. Colonels Wood and Roosevelt discovered the 
qualities, admiring friends had preconceded them. They faced the bul- 
lets from the vernal palisades, as if that particular form of self-sacrifice 
had been their daily habit. But the countiw, while deliriously proud of 
the men, was not disposed to look kindly upon the conditions that brought 
about the ordeal of the favorites, particularly as nothing tangible seemed 
gained. Again the shriek of "mutilation " was raised and the fine flower 
of society demanded reprisal. A strict examination revealed that science 
and nature, were the malefactors. It was the inhuman Mauser bullet 
that made the dead unrecognizable, or made the gashes seem the furious 
slashes of insensate hate. But there was a still ghastlier agency in dis- 
figuring the dead — even the wounded — an agency that no care could pre- 
vent or waylay, no prescience turn aside. 

Under the glistening chapparal, among the razor edged wall of the 
cactus, in the dark lush foliage, lurks and preys a malevolent little mon- 
ster called the "land crab." The odor of human blood electrifies the scaly 
members of this obscene marauder. No sooner had the Mauser completed 
its maiming work, than the land crab, "devils claw" the natives call it, 
claws its way, with incredible velocity to the prostrate body. In a flash 
its wiry tentacles are pinching out particles of flesh from the exposed 
places. These in every case were the mutilators of the dead — Spanish as 
well as Yankee. Nor was the branding summer sun a less merciless 
agent of torture. It fell in festering heat upon the unacclimated skin of 
the invader; it parched his flesh, it blurred his aching eyes and blinded 
him, as he groped feverishly in the assassin thickets; for assassin they were. 
The mere touch of the flesh upon certain cacti, the inhaling of certain 
blooms, stung the flesh, poisoned the blood and disturbed the action of 
the cerebral system. In the foetid gloom of the thicket, squirmed and 
hissed a vipery brood of uncanny and monstrous things, their eyes glowing 
in spots,like a firmament of tiny stars, and even where these repulsive and 
loathly things were not present, the hint of them insidiously spread by the 
Cubans, filled the mind of the exploring soldiery, with that terror of the 
unseen to which the ordeal of battle is mere football or polo. 

In the end, when the column had endured such agonies— the mind 
shrinks from further relating — when a score or more had been slain, the 
point was made secure by a strong earthwork oiroumvallating the pla 



262 INGENUITY OF THE SOLDIERS. 

teau. Spasmodic attacks and venomous defence alternated until the 
whole force Shatter had at his disposal reached the topmost height, form- 
ing a vast natural bulwark about the lower plateau — upon which the city 
of Santiago spreads in a confused net work of alleys to the waters edge. 
The Spaniards always under cover, had little to fear from the most frenzied 
rushes of our soldiers, and frenzied is really the only term to qualify the 
strange onset that followed the fitful arrival of the divisions concentrated 
about the beleagured city. 

In all warfare where an army attacks, the first work is the planting of 
guns to concentrate a destructive fire on the point chosen for assault by 
the line. As has been seen, the work from the base of operations at Sib- 
oney was impracticable, military men said, for the infantry. The hauling 
of artillery, capable of breaking the Spanish defences implied days at least 
of verv hard road — making by every available man in the army. In this 
dilemma the Federal commander thought that the Cubans, who were not 
exactly distinguished as soldiers, could be made available as pioneers — 
sappers and miners, as the road makers are called But the lofty pride of 
the "patriots" refused all such service. They were willing to march 
and fire, when the troops of the republic were in sufficient force to assure 
them from a charge by the enemy ; they were ready likewise to hover 
where death mowed down the Spaniards, ply the machete on the wounded, 
disfigure the dead and despoil all — but they could not be brought to the 
work of dealing the roads or aiding the success of the expedition. 

As in the Civil War, so in this brief promenade in Cuba. The Yankee 
eoldier proved himself as full of ingenuity in overcoming natural ob- 
stacles as he has always shown himself equal to the deadliest dangers. 
The roads were made passable, the bulk of the army was within striking 
distance within a week of the debarkation. Then the vivacity of the sol- 
diers either anticipated orders or exaggerated them, a series of desper- 
ately bloody combats went on at every point of impact with the enemy. 
These were signalized by an almost romantic disregard of death, on the 
part of the soldiers, and an almost equal absence of intelligent directions 
on the part of the directing commander. The men charged up artfully 
defended acclivities, swarmed over barbed wire obstructions, through 
stone walls, through dykes and over earthworks — bent only on pushing 
forward — no matter how invincibly defended. 

While "storied urn nor animated bust" cannot bring back the fleeting 
breath, the eyesight-ecstasies of the plain soldier may be accepted as in 
a seuce amirror of the momentous crises, when bravery wrought its con- 
quest. Sergeant O&isley of the Third Regulars, unconscious that he was 



BATTLE OF LA QUASINA. 268 

adding to the resources of scientific narrative, charged his mind with this 
moving picture of the advance : 

44 At Baiquiri we had a little skirmish with a small body of the enemy, 
but it did not amount to much. From there we moved on to Damayo, where 
the remainder of our troops landed. It was as fine an army as one could 
wish to see ; all of us were of the Regular Army, except the Seventy-first 
New York, the Second Massachusetts, and the Rough Riders. It was 
rather tough on the volunteers, fresh from their offices and workshops, 
and some of them were overcome by the heat. It was no uncommon 
sight to see a man discarding his clothing, even his trousers ; blankets 
were strewn by the thousands all along the line of march. There is a 
thick growth of underbrush and cacti and no roads, nothing except small 
narrow and winding paths, so that marching in line was impossible, and 
we moved forward much of the way in single file. All of the cavalry 
dismounted, and it is probably the only country where a cavalry charge 
could not be effectively made. Notwithstanding all the disadvantages, 
however, our boys brought up in line very well. There is a range of hills 
along the coast, and another just above Santiago, which runs at right 
angles to these ; it is upon these hills that the Spaniards have thrown up 
their breastworks and where they lay intrenched, largely hidden by the 
bushes, shrubs and small palms. 

"On the morning of June 24th the Rough Riders set out to take up a 
position in advance of the others, and in fact, ventured far out beyond the 
skirmish line. As a matter of fact, those fellows, brave and fearless as 
they are, and deserving of great praise and credit, actually conceived the 
idea they could take Santiago, themselves, and then return and tell the rest 
of the army how it was done! They were overdaring and advanced 
farther ahead than they were ordered to go. It was about seven o'clock 
in the morning when the two forward troops were moving slowly abend, 
that they were suddenly fired at from one of the outer trenches, hidden 
from view by the underbrush, where the enemy were concealed. They 
were taken by surprise, but stood their ground uncommonly well, 
although their relief was fully a quarter of a mile in the rear and their 
support still further behind. Colonel Wood and Lieutenant-Colonel 
Roosevelt went at once to the front and were in the thickest of the fight. 
It is little less than a miracle that either escaped with his life. Roosevelt, 
when the first volley was fired, quickly dropped his sword and side arms, 
and picking up a rifle stood by the boys and fired shot after shot with 
them as long as the skirmish lasted. He is idolized by his men, and his 
daring on that day still further endeared him to them. The two Ameri- 



THE FIRST TO FALL. 26* 

can troops of cavalry had been allowed to advance to within -.w^.ty-five 
yards of the entrenchments before the Spaniards fired their first volley, 
and the wonder is that at so short a range, they were not all killed. The 
only explanation is, that the Spaniards all shoot high, and the fact that 
they are all big cowards. [But if they were cowards, then there was no 
glory in conquering them!] They fire a volley and then turn and lun 
back to their next intrenchment. When they had fired their first volley 
at the two troops of Rough Riders the Spaniards moved to the right, be- 
hind another line of breastworks, and began a cross-fire upon our men. 

« It was in this first fire in their new position that Captain Capron was 
mortally wounded ; he was the first army officer to fall in the Spanish 
war. Sergeant Hamilton Fish died first, for he lived but ten minutes 
after he was shot. While mortally wounded Captain Capron supported 
himself by placing his left arm, which was shot in two places, about a small 
palm tree, and drawing his big pistol used it with effect, killing or wound- 
ing a Spaniard each time he fired, so close was the range! [How could 
this be verified?] Just before the enemy fled they turned and fired a 
volley at the officer and he fell dead, with seven bullet wounds in his 
body. The first to come to the relief of the Rough Riders were companies 
from the First and Ninth cavalry. In all there were not more than nine 
hundred men, but for one hour and fifty minutes they withstood the fire 
of the Spaniards, and finally succeeded in driving them, fully 4,000 
strong, back into the second line of intrenchments ! Our company 
reached the scene just before the firing ceased, and none of our men were 
injured, although we poured several volleys into the line of the retreating 
enemy. We bore our dead and wounded back to the rear, and all of 
those killed, except Captain Capron, were buried within a hundred yards 
of where they fell fighting. In the intrenchments we found forty dead 
Spaniards, and half as many more scattered a short distance away. Some 
of them died after the firing had ceased, and were so far beyond help that 
we made no attempt to do anything for them. These we buried where 
they fell, nearly sixty of them in all. Had the Spaniards been good 
marksmen, they might have annihilated the whole division, so close was 

the range." 

Volumes have already been written on this episode and volumes will 
still be written, but Sergeant Oursley embalms the actualities of the 
scene from one point of view. The squadrons of Rough Riders, buoy- 
antly heedless of the first precautions of war, ventured far beyond their 
place and were made to pay a grievous penalty. They knew no fear, 
and they met the consequences like veterans. That is all that can be 



266 SOMEBODY BLUNDERED. 

said. It was a Dlunder. In war a blunder is a crime. But in this case 
the crime was condoned, the blunderers were enshrined as heroes. It is 
due however to the directing folk of the Rough Riders and the com- 
mander in charge, the sagacious, cool headed and experimented— to use 
the French word, eloquent of what I mean, General Wheeler, to say, that 
the Rough Riders had been given minute orders in the foray. They 
were, according to the consign given them, neither surprised nor discom- 
fited by the sudden" downpour of Spanish bullets. They knew that the 
path was to be contested; that the Spaniards would have given up, 
Santiago itself, had they not made known their presence just where they 
did. All this may be conceded, it is no doubt true, that the five hundred 
Rough Riders were sent just as they went and fought just as they were 
expected to, but, the millions who fought in similar enterprises during 
the Civil War, recall that wherever the enemy was expected to do all 
that an enemy should, clouds of skirmishers were spread out like the 
tentacles of a colossal devil fish, a mile in front of the main body— so 
that when the shock came — only sparse groups could be hurt by the first 
volleys. This, on testimony of the most vehemently impulsive of the 
admirers of the Rough Riders, was not done. That a mere handful of 
these joyous troopers was made to pay the reckless gallantry of their of- 
ficers, is due quite as much to the impenetrable veil of foliage, as the 
ineptitude of the Spaniards— who of course never dreamed that a sane 
commander was entrusting a mission so formidable to so few men. And 
this incident illustrates, what I have recurrently pointed out; that a 
stupendous blunder in battle, is often as effective as the most dazzling 
Napoleonic conception. Linares took it for granted that, at least a divi- 
sion of the invading army was advancing on him ; he took it for granted, 
ns he was bound to do, that the front attack was but a feint, and that his 
flanks were in due time to be struck by the superior forces, his reconnoi- 
tering groups had seen pouring out tumultuously from Siboney. 

Hence, instead of cowards, the Spanish column that halted to force — 
or as the tacticians say — demask, the enemy's intentions, were just the 
sort of men, a profoundly wise commander depends on. It would be a 
poor testimony to the sacrifice and devotion of the men who endured — 
more than the horrors of the Moscow deroute, to charge the wretched 
Spaniards with cowardice. Indeed, one lively sentimentalist, who was 
present and recounts the fateful struggle, that won Santiago, makes 
lament, that he could not have been a Spaniard, for to him the sublime 
immolation of the enfeebled ranks that stood and died, in hunger, in 
despair, in the lack of all the incentives that make men heroic — was the 



SPANISH HEROISM. 



267 



most captivating role, known in war. For while every man in the in- 
vading army knew that our end would be gained, if it took a million 
lives, the Spaniards knew that no matter how many assaults he repulsed, 
in the end the flag of Spain must go down. He knew that, no matter 
how masterfully commanded, no matter how scientifically administered, 
the commissariat and supply, the time must come when neither bread nor 
bullets would be obtainable. It was heroism, then, for the Spaniards to 
stand the volleys from the determined, hilarious-jocose conquerors, who 
were really playing war as they would have played polo or baseball — 
hardly realizing the gravity of the situation — either in a moral or mili- 
tary sense. 




FIELD GUN CARRIED BY MULE. 




CO 

CO 



fe^r / IBs I $^-^3L^M^ 




PART II. 

IT was not the fault of the newspapers, that every man and woman, 
every boy and girl in the republic, were not crowded on the sand 
wastes of Florida, on that memorable 14th of June, when the expedition 
for the conquest, that as it turned out, meant Cuba, meant peace. 
For months, or to be determinate, from the instant the volunteers gathered 
on the sand dunes of the Florida peninsula, the country fastened its eyes 
on the corps, very much in the "opera box" attitude as it seemed to the 
European presses. To this grand and trying tryst came the light and 
heavy artillery of the press — to narrate the daily and hourly doings of the 
restive argonauts. Imposing hotels designed for the pleasuring of winter 
tourists had been transformed into casernes for the keeping of the impos- 
ing army of officers, military attaches, historians and what not, invariably 
found at the decisive point, where mobilizing armies take their point of de- 
parture. The tawny coasts, the dreary stretches of sand, the exotic foli- 
age of southern Florida, were in a few weeks as well known to the eager 
kinsmen of the assembled soldiers, as the White House in Washington or 
Grant's Tomb at Riverside Park. Columns of the writing called "pic- 
turesque " that would fill the expansive volumes of the completest ency- 
clopaedia ever written, were telegraphed and mailed northward from day 
to day, by the brigade of novelists, critics and general litterateurs im- 
pressed into the service of the new journalism. In spite of a censorship, 
smacking disagreeably of old world "methods," even arrogance, the people 
to the uttermost ends of the republic knew from day to day the numbers, 
condition, the status of the armada, concentrated at the most convenient 
striking distance to Cuba. The minutest details of the joys and sorrows, 
the plaints and pleasures of the waiting heroes, were a household tale in 
the million families where a son, a brother, a husband or father, made one 
of the cherished crusaders, dedicated to the cause of humanity, as de- 
clared by the Congress of the republic. Even in the rhapsodic romaunts 
of the "fine writers" there were premonitory notes of jarring, ominously 
adumbrating the dolorous miscalculations so soon to be verified. There 
was a shiver of apprehension when some of the more observing litterateurs 
gave out the note of warning, that the machinery of moving the supplies 
of the mass was in hands not able to handle the diverse instrumentalities 

(269j 



270 



THE SOLDIERS EAGER FOR ACTION. 



of the movement. The dazzling corps of political, social and official 
favorites, entrusted with feeding, speeding and safeguarding the needs of 
the fighters, were even in the peaceful purlieus of war, proving inade- 
quate to that uttermost of all needs — the commissariat. Depressing hints 
of an ineffective medical train, inkled northward and lent new vigor to 
the Red Cross activities, already supernaturally zealous in its ministry. 
Rut the note that struck loudest and bore most encouragingly upon the 




Hftr 







i 




25th u. s. infantry, (colokedj packing up in a hurry. 

country was the feeling of the ranks for action. They panted for war, 
now that they had outgrown the novelty of its forms and pageantry. They 
demanded the shock of battle, the march, the tumult and glory of war. And 
yet, when the order was reluctantly given to Shafter to set out on the 14th of 
June, the sixteen thousand men were not ready in 'the sense that the 
organizers of armies, the architects of victory mean by ready. The troops 




Major-General William R. Sh after. 



ON THE TRANSPORTS. 



278 



had been sweltering and repining on the transports seven days, when the 
start was definitely made. Every man of the cramped mass knew the 
fleet by sight: every man invented a pastime to lull the hours and cheat 
disease of its prey. But within a day of embarkation, an army with ban- 
ners, could not have been more terrible to the imprisoned host than the 
decks and deeps of the vessels. Life at sea is trying at best; language 
fails to describe its torments, when men are packed together, leaving 
barely space to stretch out in compact lines on every superficial foot of 
deck and cabin. But it was of excellent augury for the metal of the cru- 




INFANTRY EMBARKING FOR CUBA. 



saders, that Yankee-like, they made these discomforts subjects for joke, 
the deprivations, hilarious sarcasms. Yet historically this continent had 
never witnessed a spectacle so imposing as the sweep of this armada from 
the Florida sand dunes. It would have well repaid a journey to witness, 
for even the facile pens of the literary corps, could not, like the Egyptian 
wizard, reprod nee from a well of ink, the majestic panorama of the sea 
pageant, the mile on mile of ships brilliant in color, animated by eager 
forms moving in rhythmic unison over the opaline waters, through the 
endless expanse of tranquil sea. The head of the fleet faded in the pur- 
ple mists of the horizon, while the rear was emerging from the squalors of 
Tampa. As a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, a fleet of trans- 
ports is only as swift as its slowest craft; hence the journey Cubawarcl 
15 



274 



AN IMPOSING SPECTACLE. 



never exceeded seven miles an hour. Hearts beat high as the majestic 
line moved in the solemnity of the sea, straight southward. Every soldier 
in the armada had studied his map of Cuba, and every man knew that the 
direction of the fleet must bring the adventurers to the port of Havana. 
That exhilarating anticipation made the hours pass with inebriating 
swiftness, for to the most ardent that terminus meant battle in its fiercest 
form. Night fell and the pageant was eclipsed. Lights were forbidden. 
Under the luminous radiance of the tropic stars, the wondrous beauty of 
the sea was still visible ; the eager thousands hung over the rails to note 
what came to pass. The borealis play of lightning that illuminates the 
southern skies added to the enchanting mystery of the scene. The least 
sentimental felt the glow of rapture the poets profess, over beauty so 
perfect, so whimsically in contrast with the mission of the spectres speed- 
ing over the soft summer sea. 




LOADING SUPPLIES FOR THH EXPEDITION. 

It required twenty-four hours to get the tail end of the fleet on the 
high seas, that is far beyond the Florida Keys, while the head was skirt- 
ing Cuban waters. Never had this generation beheld a spectacle so im- 
posing; even the armaments, though vast during the civil war, Butler's, 
Banks' and Burnsides' did not number so many vessels nor so many 
troops, in a single expedition, for besides the forty or more vessels of 



LANDING THE ARMY. 276 

transports, there was a squadron of war sliips to guard against the possi- 
bility of attack by the enemy. The battleship Indiana, steamed far in 
advance, the eye of the armada. It was the twentieth — the sixth day 
from the setting out at Tampa, that the ship-worn thousands saw with 
wonder and relief, the purple horizon above the waters of Santiago. 
Every man knew then the secret, so resolutely maintained dining the 
month of waiting and the week of sailing. To the Spaniards, neither the 
sailing of the fleet, its direction nor number, even its probable destination, 
were a mystery. For as the straggling line hugged the coast, signal 
after signal went up from the headlands, and knowing the capacities of 
the transports, the coming force could be estimated to a man. Even the 
probable objective must have been divined, when the head of the column 
passed the eastern capes and swung westward toward Guantanamo and 
Sampson's sentries before Santiago. The thousands were worn with con- 
finement; land never uprose more hospitably inviting than the serrated 
terraces that spread under the eager eyes of impatient throngs. Death 
or glory, or both, lurked in the mysterious deeps beyond, but at least the 
limbs would be free ; the hateful duress of the ship, the torturing sounds 
of the machinery, the deathly smells would be gone. Baiquiri. the spot 
chosen for disembarkation, is a picture of nature in its most striking con- 
formation of mountain, sky and water. The hamlet lurks furtively at 
the base of a mountain spur, that seems to rise sheer twelve hundred feet 
in the air. This immense mountain wall is indented irregularly, making 
room for little bights, accessible to small craft. Streams, when there is 
no rain, glide in crystal purity through the wondrous herbage — kept 
green by incessant rains. Plateau and plain intermingle in quick succes- 
sion, as the land is penetrated inward and upward. To the sea worn sol- 
diers the whole range of valleys and precipice, cliff and plateau, took on 
the reality of Robinson Crusoe's isle ; for among the glistening palms and 
giant foliage. could be seen cocoanuts, mangoes and other delights of the 
parched stomach. For twelve hours Shafter's legions were boys on a pic- 
nic, lost in the wonder and delight of the embodied reality of lifelong 
dreams. But the haven of delight was not easily attained ; the sea leap- 
ing and gamboling on the rocky ledges, sent up veils and volleys of 
spray, that drenched the lighters, the wading ranks, the over eager thou- 
sands. Nor was the picture devoid of wonder, even to eyes accustomed 
to military pageantry. Horses were lowered from the lofty decks to the 
water and forced to swim landward, many of them succumbing to wave 
and fright in the short journey. On Wednesday, June 21st, the leading 
division of the fleets had disembarked their quotas ; as the darkness fell, 



270 



JOY OF THE TROOPS. 



the vales and glades that had been Arcady were aglow with campfires, the 
soldiery eager to " see more " were impatient to plunge into the interior. 
Millions followed with an interest tinged with anguish, the exasperat- 
ingly inconsequent reports of the landing of the troops: the joyance 
and even jocundities of the men,as they met the needs of an entirely un- 
tried undertaking. It was indeed a time of cheers and laughter,as the 
sixteen thousand scrambled from the prisons the ships had become, 
and made for the jocund shore in the shallops provided for the work. 




LOADING PACK MULES FOR THE MARCH. 



That there was any serious ordeal before them never seemed to strike the 
men. With the curious docility of the soldiery of a republic, they in- 
vested the commanders with prescience and capacity to meet all that 
might be humanly prepared against them. Even the lack of the commis- 
sariat, irksomely evident so soon as the masses were landed, did not sug- 
gest grumbling. In the exhilaration of the novel it was rather jocose 
raillery than the ill-nature that precedes gloom and demoralization. The 
circumscribed beach and limited space of Baiquiri, were soon overcrowded 
and then the legions began to spread out— taking the form of an advance 



THE SPANISH ARMY. 



an 



—unpremeditated in the plan of battle. Henee it came to pass that 
kirinishes, more or less sanguinary, were fought entirely outside the cal- 
culation of the commander. 

But for that matter, there was no need for elaborate strategy. The 
Spaniards had simplified the campaign by relinquishing the landing, by 
retreat from the imposing bulwark nature provided — the sixteen miles of 
impenetrable jungle and toilsome bridle paths, leading from the sea ham- 
lets to the city of Santiago. 




CONFERENCE BETWEEN SHAFTEU, SAMPSON AND GARCIA. 

Captain-General Blanco had forewarned the republic that the spirit of 
the Cuban people was high and proud; that if through inexhaustible 
wealth and unlimited resources, the invading armies reached their aim, 
the cost would be so appalling that even the republic would stand aghast! 
He said and said with truth, that he had one of the finest armies the con- 
tinent had ever held; not less than two hundred thousand men in arms 



278 IN AN UNKNOWN COUNTY. 

stood ready to die for Spain and the integrity of the patrie's conquest. 
Certainly no place could have been better chosen than the declivitous 
stretch of natural fastnesses between the base of Shafter's army and the 
intrenchments of Santiago. An enterprising commander with a dash of 
originality, might have made Satiago's cost in blood as much as the tak- 
ing of Havana. Indeed, the taking of the city — with Cervera's fleet in 
the harbor — was looked upon as a more hazardous enterprise than the 
assault of the capital itself. Nor could our cabinet counsellors and men 
versed in war, be made to believe that Blanco was blind to the possibili- 
ties of the campaign. He knew that Shafter had with him the flower of 
our army; and in consonance with the hasty opinions of the educated 
soldier, the volunteer forces called into action by proclamation, were 
hardly to be taken into consideration. Hence a reinforcement of from 
10,000 to 20,000 promptly sent to Santiago, as soon as it was certain 
Havana was not the point aimed at, would have transferred the war to 
the eastern end of the island ; it would have compelled a tedious halt in 
the campaign ; would have given the climate time to work havoc with 
our army and so changed the situation, that for a delusive moment Spain 
might seem capable of coping with her enemy. But even without a di- 
version from Havana — there were columns dispersed with a stupefying 
disregard of sound military judgement that might have made every 
nile from Santiago to the sea a sanguinary battleground. Even Gen- 
oral Linares' force was adequate to a step by step contest from the sea — 
over the discomfiting ridges, the deadly chapparal, the natural fortresses, 
the whole country presented for such a campaign, for illustration — as Jo- 
seph E. Johnson fought in 1864 in defending Atlanta. 

It was therefore not surprising that the Rough Riders assumed that 
where natural obstacles had been so heedlessly disregarded, no Spanish 
soldiery need be looked for. In this belief— swinging gaily over the 
mountain wall, buried in forests of almost malignant obstacles, they were 
surprised. But again, the woeful ineptitude of Spain saved us. A capa- 
ble chief anywhere between the first mountain ridge and Sevilla, would 
have made the entire advance of the somewhat heedless army, a slaughter 
— perhaps a disaster— changing the course of the campaign. A jaunty 
disregard for the primary prudence of war, as well as ignorance of first 
principles, marked our conduct of the campaign, as well as the action of 
the advance. 

The various detachments marched toward Santiago apparently indif 
ferent to any of the safeguards, always redoubled as the resistance of the 
enemy beoomes weaker — for then there is good reason to suspect. It was 



SQUAD FIGHTS. 



27& 



due to Spanish negligence, rather than to the prevoyance of the com- 
manders of the invading column, that every hillside was not littered with 
our dead. 

And the army soon had proof of this: not only in the murderous sur- 
prise of the handful of Rough Riders, but in the deadly efficacy of the 
primitive blockhouses buttressing rude intrenchments and barbed wire 




LIME KILN CONVERTED INTO A BLOCKHOUSE. 

barricades, holding the charging columns suspended in the onrush, while 
perishing under the withering flight of Mauser bullets. From the mo- 
ment the columns set out from the sea, such fighting as went on was 
whimsically like the result of individual enterprise, or as the corre- 
spondents ironically expressed it "squad fights." That is, bodies of men, 
pushing out adventurously and meeting opposition, instead of making 



280 THE REGULARS. 

back for the main body,as all well organized campaigning exacts, stood 
their ground and held it until other squads in curiosity or a spirit of ad- 
venture joined them ! This was brave, even brilliant, but it was in no 
sense war. A foeman of the least address or resolution would have cut 
off every vestige of these sporadic forces. Indeed, the contrast between 
the determined resolution of the Spaniards, when in line, and their in- 
comprehensible laggardness when every chance coveted by an inferior 
force was heedlessly abandoned to them, would argue that the defence on 
General Linares' part was purely perfunctory. During the Civil War — 
to go no farther, we saw innumerable instances of forces vastly inferior 
to Linares', contesting a federal advance inch by inch and finally repulsing 
it in disaster. In the Red River expedition in 18(34, General Banks under- 
took to conquer Shreveport and Central Texas, by a movement not un- 
like Shafter's. His advance was marked by nearly the same grotesque 
disdain of military axioms. He was made to pay the penalty by a defeat, 
that under other circumstances would have imperilled the whole cam- 
paign. But the Spaniards having relinquished the striking advantage, 
the Morro would have given them in a defence of the coast line, merely 
"annoyed" the advance over the hills. It was their unsystematic plan 
and desultory execution which betrayed Shafter into the final series of 
what for a time looked like bloody repulse, at San Juan and El Caney. 
Indeed — it is no exaggeration, no undue pride in our incomparable Regu- 
lars, that impels the assertion, that had it not been for the inexpugnable 
resolution of the compact mass of Regular soldiery, entrusted with the 
mission, Shafter's movement would have ended as Banks' ended. From 
the memorable exploits of Napoleon's invincible phalanxes in the first 
Italian campaign to the most stirring of their prodigies at Ulm and Eck- 
muhl, soldiery in action never surpassed the heroic resolution, evinced by 
General Lawton's, Chaffee's and Kent's battalions. They stood in line of 
battle, when standing meant incessant exposure — swift, sure hurt; they 
maintained the perilous line, taken when each Spaniard in front by virtue 
of arms and shelter equalled ten of the invaders. They could not be 
moved by the maelstrom of death each discharge of the murderous Mausers 
inflicted ; they were as impassive in the red glare of the perfectly directed 
volle3 r s, as in the breathing space afforded by the trenches; they stood 
calm, majestic, agonizing ; they died and made no outcry ; they charged 
and never wavered in the alignments, they lay prone in the hideous 
trenches and never for an instant could it be detected that they were not 
as terribly effective thus spread out, as in the rush of the charge or the 
sinister line of battle. Indeed, the Regular was to the land combat, what 



THE INDOMITABLE MASS. 281 

the imposing Texas, Iowa, or Indiana, were to the fleets — a mechanism 
so perfect that nothing but complete destruction could impair that pro- 
digious force. Against this indomitable mass, the Spanish impetuously 
spent themselves in the three days of determined fight which brought the 
campaign to an end. Now the effect the Regulars wrought upon the 
enemy was not less potent upon the volunteers. Brave, too brave, these 
fine soldiers, were; for there is a certain valor bred of lack of knowledge 
of the danger one is confronting. When the volunteer masses looked 
into the seething cauldron of fire and saw the impassive lines of the Regu- 
lars, it was impossible to realize that death was the penalty of the slightest 
movement. The bullets sang and hissed and did their deadly work, but 
it seemed normal, so long as these imperturbable figures, made head 
against them, in all the tranquil unconcern of the parade ground. The 
bullets struck them and they fell quietly. I was about to say decorously, 
but the term hardly befits that final sacrifice, the brave make for their 
country. Had the defenders of Santiago possessed a genius like Napoleon 
to lead, or an army like Massena's to resist, the qualities shown by our 
Regulars, in the storm and stress of El Caney and San Juan, would have 
defeated both. This is claiming a great deal ; but when the action is 
studied, when the corroborating facts and details are compared, no mind 
imbued with the real business of soldiery will question the assertion. If 
fine soldiery is a fine thing, this republic has perhaps as redoubtable a 
phalanx as can be found organized in war. But during the three or four 
crucial days of the advance, when the Santiago shrubberies were sinister 
with slaughter, when the pens that command vivid phrases were pictur- 
ing the deeds of the day to the poignantly attentive millions, it would 
never have been suspected that the strong rock of our reliance, the sure, 
the indomitable instrument of victory, was the thin but invincible bul- 
wark of disciplined valor, making so little of the worst that befalls the 
soldier, that the untrained historians, seeing no signs of fear, overlooked 
the fact that tenor was the garment that covered all. 

Once the small army was distributed for its work, the plan of cam- 
paign, simple enough from the disposition of the Spanish leader's limita- 
tions, went on with definite finality. Each version of the advance differs 
according to the relations and partialities of the recording scribe. The 
Rough Riders and certain New York regiments might be supposed to 
have decided the fortunes of the event, by heroic dash and omnipresent 
utility. Never was a small army so abundantly provided with historians. 
The affluent journals of most of the large cities were deluged with points 
of view from every regimental headquarters. Each of these active ob- 



282 DIFFICULTIES IN THE WAT. 

servers saw with an eye trained to effect. The campaign in front of Se- 
vastopol evoked no more diversity of unbridled eulogy or acrimonious 
commentary. 

In some of the narratives, the republic was made to gloat over the al- 
most jocose dare-deviltry of various favorite divisions ; others were painted 
as restrained from something like disaffection, only by pride of organiza- 
tion or state jealousy. 

General Shafter was bodied forth alternately as cowering in his tent far 
in the rear, ignoring all that was going on ; bewildering the war junta in 
Washington by clamor for reinforcements, or stolidly forcing forward his 
inadequate forces to gain the cheap renown of a Fourth of July conquest. 
This diversity of tone extended to the uttermost detail of organization. 
It was clamorously set forth that the provision for the nourishment of the 
harassed ranks was derisory; that within an hour of the fleets and transports, 
within twenty-four hours' sail of New York, the sweltering, the maimed 
and the halt were on half rations. And in the dire hour of death, when 
the Mauser was mowing down the onrushing and misled ranks, there were 
no provisions for the wounded; no surgeons, no tents, no medicine, in 
anything like reasonable proportions. One surgeon to a regiment was 
the rule during the carnage at San Juan and El Caney. Ten minutes to 
an operation, the amputation of a limb, or even the more serious attempts 
that surgeons now undertake, in the very crisis of battle, was the allotted 
space. Surgeons wrought among the mangled, and fell fainting in the 
pestilential air; the wounded ranged in helpless prostration, like cattle 
in a slaughter pen, waiting their turns, from early morning until the mer- 
ciful darkness fell with the dewy coolness of the tropic clime. 

These painful disclosures were made all over the battlefield, and so circum- 
stantially corroborated, that the charge cannot be disputed. Even in the 
comparatively facile affair of removing the wounded who reached the sea, 
the lugubrious tale of mingled inefficiency and peculation found more 
sinister material; the transports allotted the wounded were unfit for them. 
The able bodied and influential were awarded the comfortable quarters, 
while the mutilated and helpless fared as they could. 

Held by the arms of the sea as in a trap, General Linares, the Spanish 
commander of the Santiago district, from the first, was under no illusion 
as to his fate. He had no food, little ammunition, and few or none of the 
military appliances essential to the defence of the vital points which, if 
adequately armed in time, might have made the capture of Santiago quite 
as formidable an undertaking as Havana was generally admitted to be. 
Above all, the unfortunate Spanish commander had an army, which, if not 



CONDITION OF THE SPANISH ARMY. 283 

exactly mutinous, was destitute of that buoyant spirit which nerves men 
to dare, no matter how weighted the chances against them. And in truth, 
as the Spanish army found itself, or rather as General Shafter found it, 
its destruction ought to have followed the first impact with our soldiery. 
But what we now know of the Spanish commander's miserable predica- 
ment General Shafter did not know, when his buoyant battalions spread 
themselves onward out of his reach and set about the capture of the city 
by a coup-de-main. This indeed is the story of the ten days' maneuver- 
ing and combat which finally ended in the breakdown of the Spanish de- 
fenses. It is, however, a misuse of the terra, as ordinarily understood in 
military parlance, to speak of the sporadic combats and the bewildered 
movements as an advance or a siege. The presence of a group of guer- 
rillas in the thick undergrowth, the ominous whirring and whizzing of the 
repeating Mauser, seemed to the excited imagination of the volunteers, 
the fire and fury of war at its gravest. Even such reports as came from 
the regimental brigade and division commanders, evidenced a sort of naive 
surprise that real war permitted of such disorderly disturbances of regi- 
mental formation, as the successive but half-hearted ambuscades presented. 
It is within bounds to say that there was more soul-stirring narrative 
of the sort called "thrilling," for the casual encounter of Colonel Roose- 
velt's rough riders, than was written for the battles of Antietam, Fred- 
ericksburg or Gettysburg. Successful ambuscades, at points where pru- 
dent military judgment would have foreseen just such encounters, gave 
the semblance of war to the movement of investment which, it must be 
owned, delighted a large majority of the volunteers, for it gave them just 
the sensation that youthful ardor covets. But among the more wary, the 
fifth day of the advance, when Shafter's army stretched in a long and 
precarious line from, what may be called the extreme left of the Spaniards 
at El Caney, to their extreme right at El Morro or Aguadores, a distance 
of eight miles, was filled with the gloom of an apprehension, which in the 
cold light of subsequent facts seems grotesque. Sinister prophecies of an 
Adowah trap,wherein General Shafter was to meet the fate that the Abys- 
sinians visited upon the Italians, were whispered under the breath, even by 
the most daring. For it was covertly declared that the march from Agua- 
dores and Baiquiri to Sevilla, was an almost wanton invitation to the en- 
terprise of some obscure Spanish Moseby, Stonewall Jackson or Jeb. Stew- 
art. Indeed, there was not an hour from the landing of Shafter's sixteen 
thousand, until the moment the wretched Toral handed over his cartel, 
that a sanely led diversion to our flank or rear, would not have withered 
the array as a strong sunshine on new snow. 



284 UNPLEASANT PREDICTIONS. 

Not that the march was too fast, nor the seizure of the various points 
misjudged, but that isolated regiments were thrown forward beyond 
available touch with their supports ; above all because this extraordinary 
army adventured itself far beyond the guns of the fleet, without a single 
piece of artillery to defend itself, in the event of a strong attack on any 
given point. In war at least, if not in morals, the end justifies the means. 
It may be that General Shafter knowing from secret sources the ex- 
hausted, supine and unfit condition of his enemy, felt that the ordinary 
precautions of war were a waste of time. Nothing else can explain the 
thrusting of his grotesquely inadequate forces beyond the range of instant 
reinforcements. But what seemed more inexplicable than all this happy- 
go-lucky improvidence, was the persistent disregard of that most vital of 
all elements to a fighting column, victualling and shelter. Napoleon in 
his most daring ventures, when in his first Italian campaign as he jocosely 
declared: "The army moved on its boots and its belly," never ventured 
to let the cry of hunger be heard, no matter what the peril to his compli- 
cated combinations. 

Yet the intrepid bands who found themselves in possession of the ad- 
vanced line, and for days none of them knew how, fell in the sticky 
morasses and mountain mud, bent under dripping branches, or packed 
themselves together for vital warmth, with not even the sustenance of a 
hardtack. 

We have drunk so deeply of the glory, inebriated ourselves so inex- 
haustibly in the panegyrics of what our army did, that it is wise, even es- 
sential that we should know that even the daring of the republic's sol- 
diers cannot be placed in comparison beside their constancy, and that 
nameless something, which makes a man trebly a soldier when lie pos- 
sesses it. This, when the last word is spoken on the Santiago campaign 
will be the peculiar trait the military critic must signalize as the differ- 
entiating distinction of our volunteers, as compared with the perfunctor- 
ily drilled mechanisms that make up the old world battalions. Nor is it 
without signification, to keep in mind that none of the prerequisite engi- 
neering details obligatory upon the armies marching in an enemy's coun- 
try, seem to have been thought of. The men who were launched out 
under the shower of Mauser bullets were likewise the builders of bridge 
and road, of abbatis breastwork and trench. 

Apparently the guiding mind of the United States army was appre- 
hensive that the Spanish commander would, on the mere apparition of the 
Tampa army, sacrifice the city and carry his garrison to swell the forces 
of the Captain-General northwestward. Hence, having secured the iso- 



HOW THE CAMPAIGN WAS FOUGHT. 286 

lated advanced post of Siboney, he spread a thin line to the northwest- 
ward in order to shut the beleaguered garrison in, or to at least make it 
impossible for any considerable number to march out before the besiegers 
could make themselves felt in sufficient force to check the exodus. 

It was these columns which brought on the fitful and momentarily 
fierce combats of San Juan hill and El Caney. Our thin line on attain- 
ing within five miles of Santiago, on the northwest and a proportionate 
distance from the arm of the sea, which forms the bay southward to 
Aguadores, could see no Spanish line, could discern no troops, but for an 
instant felt the sting of the Mausers and at certain points, the deadly ex- 
plosions of artillery. It was the very intelligence of our soldiery that 
made the situation difficult. For every man could see, even though de- 
void of military training, that with anything like equal force, the db 
4 fenders, on such terrain, could hold ten times, yes, a hundred times their 
jwn numbers at bav. 

With cnaracteristic nonchalance too, the majority of the regiments de- 
cided their own plan of operations ; fixed the date of assault and sur- 
render for the republic's birthday, the fourth of July ! No official man- 
date had gone out to that effect, but it is perfectly obvious from thfi 
strenuous onrush of isolated regiments and brigades, that each con.' 
mander secretly determined to signalize his force by a triumph on Inde 
pendence Day. It is not unlikely that General Shafter had this whimsi 
cally laudable purpose in his own mind. It is the only admissible con 
jecture of what would otherwise have been a criminal adventure. 

But ill as the Spaniards were prepared and desultory as their onsets, it 
was seen that the shrewdly planted lines of blockhouses and the murder 
ous entanglements of barbed wire masking ditches and other not badly 
conceived impediments, forced a recourse to the orderly appliances of 
siege operations. The heavy guns capable of knocking down blockhouses 
and demolishing the defences, could alone be depended upon to make the 
advance of soldiery possible without slaughter, criminally out of propor- 
tion with the end to be achieved. It was fully four days after the heads 
of columns, which may be called squadrons of discovery, reached the de- 
cisive points of defence, that a few straggling guns were heard near the 
strong point of El Caney and the hill of San Juan. The flower of the 
army, its strong rock of defence, in fact, seven regiments of regulars, 
reached the crucial point on the extreme right, the Malakoff as one might 
call it, in a small way, of the situation, after an all-night march, foodless 
but unimpairably ready. It tells most eloquently the difficulties of the 
woodland march, the mountain impasses, the roaring streams, the impene» 



286 



THE FLOWER OF THE ARMY. 



trable paths, that a large percentage of these men, who had battled the 
Indians in the West, had dropped exhausted in their tracks and were 
reported for twenty-four hours at least, as stragglers. Nor is it without 
its significance that the line when rushed into order for battle, was found 
so mixed up, that stragglers from one regiment were found in bewildered 
groups searching for some place to fight, unable to find their own com- 
mands. 

As the outcome proved, General Shafter's objective fulfilled the first 
maxim of sound military tactics ; to meet and beat the enemy wherever 
his loss would be greatest, and the consequences most decisive to the as- 
sailant. Santiago was a double prize. It was the eastern centre of the 
defences of Cuba; it was only second to Havana as a defensive point, and 
with Cervera's fleet locked in its harbor, it was of even more value to our 
forces than the Cuban capital itself. 

It is one of the universal reflections suggested by the war, that there 
was hardly a man in the ranks who did not appreciate the strategic value 
of the place, so soon as the vast armada of transports came to a pause 
within sight of the threatening walls of the Morro. But more than this, 
there was not a man in the 16,000, who was not in a primary sense an 
educated man. From the General down, the history and associations of 
the beleaguered city,added to the zest of a young soldiery's first attempt 
at war. 

Santiago had been the scene of Columbus' ministry, it had been the 
home of that great group of conquistadores who had made Spain famous. 
It had something of the effect on the imaginations of the men, that Jaffa 
and the oriental strong places, produced upon the young warriors of 
Napoleon, when he invaded Egypt. Santiago was to all Spaniards, as 
well as all Cubans in a sense, the Sacred City— St. James of Cuba. 

Huddled in the contracted fashion which the Spaniards adopted from 
the Moors, the city itself would not meet the expectations of those accus- 
tomed to our wide streets, our vernal alleys, our abounding parks and 
Vast suburban residence quarters. Nature, however, framed it in an 
environment of ineffaceable beauty. Lapped by the waters of the bay on 
its front, its outskirts mingled with the sensuous foliage of the tropic 
plateaus. The mystery and enchantment of four hundred years of the 
unknown, or vaguely known, aided the fancies of the invaders, and to 
some extent relieved them of the oppression of the intolerable surround- 
ings met the instant they disembarked. Every detail of the disembarka- 
tion was known from Buenos Ayres to St. Petersburg almost an hour 
after its happening. Never probably in war was a contest of what was at 



THE CITY OF SANTIAGO. 287 

best but of secondary magnitude, watched with an interest so thrillingly 
absorbing as that which centered itself upon Shafter's slender column, 
whose work virtually ended the war. 

It was dimly felt throughout the country, so soon as the first despatches 
were read announcing the difficulties of the country between the landing 
and the city, that the hosts cantoned at Chickamauga and a score more of 
rendezvous in the republic would have been more wisely employed in 
making the invading column irresistible. For almost from the instant of 
landing, until the ominous reports of Shafter's uneasiness reached the 
country, it was clear that the forces were not adequate to the conquest of 
the city, if the Spaniards showed anything of the resolution and heroism 
of their ancestors at Saragossa. 

The Havana and Madrid presses had confidently assured the world 
that the Yankees should meet before the walls of the Sacred City of St. 
James, the fate that befell Napoleon's legions at the hands of Palafox and 
the Joan of Arc, who made the name of Saragossa renowned as an 
example of what a people can do, when determined to defend their hearth- 
stones. Now, in spite of their jaunty confidence and inexpugnable thirst 
for adventure, something of these admonitions fell upon our adventurous 
legions, as the indescribable difficulties of the march began. For to the 
torments of a roadless mountain side broken by gulleys and defended 
more cunningly by nature than the art of man could devise, there uprose 
dense and fairly impenetrable chevaux-de frise of thorny plants, so stiff 
and obstinate that an ordinary scythe, or any of the appliances of the hus- 
bandman, made but faint impression upon them. Add to this a sun 
scorching in the intensity of its rays and never clouded from its rising till 
its going down, superadd to this, almost regularly of an afternoon, a 
downpour of rain which transformed the clayey soil into a stickiness that 
made lifting the feet the labor of a Hercules. 

Before the armies quit their camps in the Union, an elaborate series of 
instructions had been given each soldier providing for his welfare in the 
new conditions he was about to face. First of these was, that no water 
was to be used without boiling. And in keeping with other short-com- 
ings, brought to light by the very first manceuver, it was found that the 
soldier's kit was unprovided with the means of heating, even had the con- 
ditions been favorable. Luck, however, was the god ruling the planet of 
our armies, as well as our navies. For almost every road of the mountain 
side was broken by rivulets of clear pellucid water, refreshing as nectar 
to the sweltering legions as they toiled painfully upward and onward. 

It was recommended to the legions too, that they should never sleep 



288 



IN THE CAMPS. 



upon the ground and this admonition soon became the derisive byword 
of the maltreated ranks, stretched for miles on the soaking grass or in the 
muddy tracks of the column itself, as it advanced. It is very doubtful 
whether a single man in expedition was wholly dry at any time from the 
moment the march began, until the gates of Santiago opened in surrender. 
The Cuban contingent, while unprovided with clothing and destitute 
of arms, never failed to have its hammock, and while the men who did 
the fighting burrowed in the mud and under the dripping foliage, the 




REGIMENTAL COMMISSARY TENT. 

Cubans were at ease, swinging from the trees in aerial beds. Some of the 
complaints sounded with shrillness by the correspondents, were indicative 
of the naive ignorance of the men that made them, and the soldiery who 
endured them. It was held a great hardship that there should be nothing 
to eat but "hard tack" and salt meat. Yet during the Civil War, the 
two million and more of men who fought between 1861 and 1865, never 
dreamed of anything better, save when in camp and far from the battle- 
field. The strategists of the campaign, however, had overlooked the ne- 
cessity of having this simple food in abundance, and within reach, for, as 
there were no roads, no vehicles were at hand to accumulate stores at 
such points as the heads of columns were directed to. 



PART III. 






GENERAL YOUNG was despatched from the base at Baiquiri first. 
He was to have had a strong corps, but the precipitancy of his 
march and the impassibility of the roads forced him to do the brunt of 
the fighting with the brigade of Regulars, the Rough Riders and the 
Second Massachusetts. This march to the north and east of Santiago was 

determined upon, in order to separate 
General Linares' army from an auxiliary 
force of 7,000 at Guantanamo — to the east- 
ward. It also provided for an ultimate 
enfolding of the north and west de- 
bouches from the beleaguered city, as 
well as the prevention of reinforcements 
threatened from places to the north and 
west. The cavalry had no horses, nor 
could they use them if they had; the 
• fficers of all ranks were likewise dis- 
mounted during the earlier stages of the 
march. But it is a misuse of words to 
call the advancing movement a march. 
The troops were really more in the pre- 
dicament of Alpine climbers, or bushmen 
compelled to slash their way through the impenetrable wall of obstinate 
growth spreading out of gulch sides and rock-ribbed juttings, where nature 
had played her wildest volcanic pranks at some unknown seismic epoch. 

" Altares," is the name given by the Cubans to the corrugated fretwork 
of ridges that break up the country into territory adapted more for the 
passage of birds of the air, than man or beast. While not precisely like 
the famous lava bed lands on which General Canby fought thirty years 
ago, in Oregon, the veterans among the Regulars, who made the journey 
irom Siboney to the gates of Santiago, saw a painful resemblance. Now 
when the land itself uprose in forbidding obstinacy, the Spaniards began 
the defence which they declined at the seashore. That the invaders made 
headway, is the extraordinary part of this extraordinary campaign ; for in 
answering the well-studied volleys from unseen sources, our toiling masses 
w *."o 'orced to take aim at an angle of almost; fortv tf"e degrees, almort 
16 (291) 




M> X 



n •*%■ 



GENERAL LINARES. 



292 THE BATTLE OF SE VILLA. 

vertically in the air. But quite as trying as this, in fact immeasurably 
more arduous to limb and brain, was the labor of dragging the body up 
what was in effect sheer declivity, in many parts of the advance. More 
depressing even than the implacable resistance of earth and wood, there 
was no sign either by traveled wood paths or cursory openings, that the 
immense mountainous circumvallation ended anywhere. It shut in the 
horizon completely ; the most vivid fancy could conceive no city in the 
abysmal deeps of this rugged nature. But the maps, liberally supplied 
the ranks, showed El Caney, San Juan and other inhabited hamlets, at 
points of vantage for the assault upon Santiago, as well as excellent bul- 
warks for a capable line of defence. 

The Rough Riders debouched through the density of the wood upon 
what was called the " hog back " and on reaching that fateful plateau, 
seared with fissures and bristling with chapparal, found themselves en- 
filaded by an unseen enemy. The hilarious Riders, on foot, were caracol- 
ing through the thorny way, enlivening the solemn stillness of the woods 
by the jocosities that seem part of the exuberance of our diversely mixed 
blood, during hours of danger. The narratives of French troops in 
action from the revolutionary epopee until Waterloo, dwell on the 
" gaiete Francaise." This was the wear of the soldiery, all through the 
Santiago campaign. Whether things were going well or ill, whether the 
rations were scant or abundant, you might hear from end to end of the 
line, mingled with more sinister exclamations, the grotesque humors and 
fanciful slang, that expresses the joviality of good nature, good humor 
and that semi serious levity, which it is so difficult for other peoples to 
comprehend. For a breathless half hour, death was the chorus to the 
Rough Riders' jokes. A score of the light-hearted merry-makers was 
stretched quivering or silent on the palpitating sward, for the heat was 
so intense that the very earth seemed to rise and fall as it exhaled the 
hot, pungent odors of the dank, decaying vegetation. It was here, and at 
this time, that young Hamilton Fish fell ; that the journalist Marshall 
intrepidly venturing to "get all the news," reeled to the earth fairly 
riddled with Mauser balls. But though the first reports represented this 
episode as something of an unauthorized escapade on the part of the 
Riders, it was really part of General Young's scheme to seize the outlying 
points, commanding the Santiago entrenchments. 

By a road somewhat easier than that which fell to the Roosevelt com- 
panies, General Young reached a point parallel, and forced the enemy to 
rush backward to the blockhouses of Sevilla. These were perched far 
above the " hog back " ; to attain them the Regulars, patient as pack 



A SERIOUS DILEMMA. 



293 



horses, were forced to use hands, and in some cases men were seen ht.ldiiicr 
overhanging branches in their teeth, to steady themselves for an upwaid 
lunge. The observant army officers set it down that the climb was 
never at less than an angle of thirty degrees, and often forty. But when 
death had taken its tale ; when the herculean climb had ended, a 
paradisaic vision rewarded the astonished column. Spreading far away 
on every hand, far as the enraptured eyes could follow, on the vast 




BLOCKHOUSE AT SEVILLA. 

plateau, the villas, haciendas, homesteads, of the Santiago's well-to-do, 
glimmered and glistened like friendly monitors. But the promises to 
the hope were broken to the heart, for the gay walls and enchanting 
gardens were broken and in ruins ; wild plants, of inconceivably luxuriant 
growth, covered paths, once symmetrical and solacing; walls once gay 
with the hues the natives love to employ in decoration, were mere 
mosques of paved elegance. For years the marauders of the "patriot" 
army have made these homes of ease and leisure, tenantless. The lizard 



294 ON TO EL CANEY. 

and the wild fowl perch where music and Laughter once resounded. The 
cost of this vision, the conquest of the plateau was heavy, the action is 
known as the battle of Sevilla, June 24th. 

Meanwhile, the army was still crawling, clambering and fighting onward 
from the seashore, in paths still further to the northwest, aiming at the 
furthermost bastion of Santiago, El Caney and San Juan. Sevilla was in 
a direct line not more than three miles, but these three miles took the ex- 
hausted soldiery from eight hundred to a thousand feet above the starting 
point. El Caney is six miles from Sevilla, and the army had no sooner 
clutched the vantage, than it was obvious to the group in command that 
the advance must be instant or the army would be endangered. But the 
very completeness of the clutch on Sevilla, added to the mountain of 
difficulties that discovered themselves, curiously enough, only as the 
troops advanced. For food and supplies vitally essential to the army and 
the guns, could not be hoped for in time to put the men in shape for an 
advance, or what was still more probable, a massed attack from the Span- 
iards, whose lines grew ominously closer and more compact, as they were 
driven backward. To add to the torments of the time, a series of rain- 
storms poured down, and the soil where exposed to the sun became like 
partly dissolved bricks. Every depression in the ground became a 
rivulet, and every ridge a waterfall. Roads, or what had been semblances 
of roads, became yellow streams, rapid and even dangerous to the in- 
fantry. There were veterans present who were reminded of the famous 
" mud march " of the army of the Potomac, brought to a pause by the 
impossibility of moving over such footway. The dilemma was for a mo- 
ment so serious, that suggestions were made to General Shafter to suspend 
the northwest movement, and by capturing a small town in the bay 
farther southward, secure a base nearer the investing line. But the troops 
were already en route, and the northwest movement continued and, whim- 
sically enough, the nearness of the Fourth of July stimulated the officers 
to undertake the impossible. This was on the 29th of June when the 
council of war was held. Officers who had been part of the army in the 
Civil War, looked with some distrust upon the ability of our over-willing 
ranks to withstand the deadly volley of the Mauser, under the fatal dis- 
advantages of a powder that betrayed our lines to the Spaniard at every 
shot. At the least calculation, one Spaniard was in offensive qualities 
equal to five of the invaders. 

For most of our men were armed with the old-fashioned Springfield 
rifle, which is as out of date now as the ungainly Queen Bess when the 
Enfield came in. The Spaniards could count on killing anything bearing 



THKOUGH THE DEATH PIT. 295 

the semblance of life at a distance of nearly two miles, and this had hap- 
pened frequently under the horrified eyes of the officers. No tactics, no 
man ob uve ring, could compensate the invading lines for this almost super- 
natural advantage. Even that last resource of a perplexed general, move- 
ments by the flank, were unavailable from the density of the thickets and 
the lack of roads. 

Now standing far out from Santiago and covering the approach in every 
direction which we were obliged to pursue, stood what was called the fort 
of San Juan. But to reach that the crenelated village of El Caney must 
first be in our hands. From the counsels came the determination to as- 
sault El Caney at dawn on the first of July, Generals Young and Chaffee 
were given the post of danger while General Lawton was directed to 
swing around northwestward, to be in a posture to give the decisive blow. 
Reconnaissances were, however, essential, and General Lawton made these 
with three brigades. The gist of this resolution, so momentous for 
thousands of bedraggled soldiery, foodless and shelterless, became known 
in the mysterious way that army secrets have of conveying themselves to 
those on the alert for them. The men dared light no fires for the Spanish 
grape, as well as the Mausers commanded every inch of the plateau care- 
fully studied in advance by its defenders. General Chaffee, through the 
night edged his men through the death-pits to within striking distance of 
El Caney, where, by unheard of toil, they entrenched themselves. Pits 
guarded by a thick ridge of earth, covered the entire force by daylight. 
In these rifle-pits, as they were called, the men found a reward for their 
toil when the fury of the battle began next day. The general and staff 
knew that the Spaniards had defended themselves by all the appliances 
at their command. But it was not suspected, until the battle began, how 
intelligently, even astutely, they had taken advantage of every favoring 
undulation, preparing surprises where least expected, and masking ambus- 
cades almost in front of the rifle pits. But the invading force could 
neither advance nor retreat without the capture of this fort or series of 
forts. . . . 

The sun rises and the day breaks on the Cuban earth almost at the 
same instant. There is no slow dawn as in our northern climes, and as 
if in mirage the invading hosts saw the sun and the flash of the enemy s 
guns simultaneously. The advance was ordered. Then the fateful cer- 
tainty of the Regulars' onset displayed itself. Wherever the fight fell 
upon the Regulars, there the work that the trained soldier is expected 
to do was done calmly, intrepidly, with no fanfare of theatric show. At 
a crisis in the combat, when the stoutly defended hill of San Juan was 



296 THE ONSET OF THE REGULARS. 

working slaughter with its Mausers, Lieutenant Parker of the Thirteenth 
Regulars made his way to an opening between that regiment and its neigh- 
bor on the line. There was a slight gap in the inverting ranks, where the 
ground rose to a knoll. Upon this the lieutenant set a battery of four 
Gatling guns of the newest and most murderous pattern. These four 
pitiless instruments ground out death as a coffee mill grinds out its 
aromatic grain. The effect was instant, visible, heartrending — even 
though it was the enemy who suffered. The bullets sent in a hail, unceas- 
ing, carefully aimed, withered all semblance of life, all attempt at cohesive 
resistance out of the blockhouse or its defenders. This significant episode 
had no journalistic witnesses. It was part of the prescribed work of the 
Regulars. It had the effect of half a brigade, but in all the dithyrambic 
details of the battle there is nowhere a word of mention of it. Possibly 
because it is the conviction of the volunteers, the scribe and the on-looker, 
that the Regular is in some subtle sense a creature of war; that danger 
is his delight, his element; that overcoming the impossible is part of his 
training; that to deal death and make no display, receive death and make 
no sign, are part of the Regular routine. Be this as it may the Regulars 
redeemed all the precipitanc}' of the untrained, safeguarded the imperilled 
lines, even when the danger was as menacing to fly as to stay. These four 
well-placed Gatlings opened the way for a rush forward — that nettle danger 
which, when plucked, gave the rashly adventured muss safety. The 
plateau was an immense sieve of surprisingly concealed rifle pits. In each 
rifle-pit a group of tenacious Spaniards, clustered, showering the stretch of 
ground between them and the advancing host with clouds of bullets that 
fairly seemed to make the air black. But there was no halt, not the scintilla 
of a waver in the heavy column steady, devoted, lurching forward over the 
irregularities, gathering in line after line of the furious crevasses. But even 
when these were overcome, behind them uprose massive stockades fairly 
aflame with the density of the firing. These too the Regulars rushed upon, 
seized, conquered. Meanwhile the ranks gnthered about San Juan were 
waiting and — dying as they waited — for Chaffee's blows at El Caney were 
no longer a mere menace. In the very heat and fury of this triumphant 
furious advance this leonine fighter received wailing messages from his 
comrades in command, imploring him either to advance to the seizure of 
the blockading fort or retreat, as it was death to the other brigades to re- 
main where they were. The message spread along the ranks and the 
men who had been out daring dare deviltry itself, took on a new impetus. 
Inebriated by the opening volleys of Capron's guns, which by an inspira- 
tion of the commander, so ranged themselves that they poured a concen- 



"TAKE THE VILLAGE." 297 

trated fire into the blockhouse battery, the piteously thinned ranks seemed 
to increase in prowess, as they diminished in numbers. Capron's guns 
sent their missiles through the line of blockhouses knocking whole panels 
from the flaming sides. The effect was to benumb the defenders of the 
still untaken rifle-pits and to dislodge the gunners, who had been scatter- 
ing death from these stone bulwarks. But though shaken, dying and 
dislocated, the Spaniards still had new coverts; no sooner had our lines 
routed one rank of defenders, than they swarmed as if reinforcements 
had arrived, in another. 

At this juncture the commander, Chaffee, received again the start- 
ling tidings that the real battle of the day was going on at San Juan 
and that unless reinforced the decimated ranks would be compelled to 
retire. It was not an absolute command to suspend the more than half- 
won victory, but it was one of those crises in action which tries the judg- 
ment and reveals the soldier. It was the adjutant-general who came to 
bring this disheartening word. He was taken along the line, shown what 
had been accomplished and what remained to do ; the fate of the battle 
and the siege depended upon the outcome. The decision was left to 
Breckenridge the Inspector-General, who was not in authority : " You 
must take the village," that official replied without hesitation. And 
thirty minutes later the wall of death was in the hands of its assailants. 

In the wild hurtling on-rush, Colonel Haskell of the Seventeenth In- 
fantry had orders to support the Seventh Infantry, but his predicament 
put his men in the very maw of the engulfing fire. There is a sublime 
egotism in the bravery evoked in the crisis of battle, the naive belief that 
the point to be gained depends upon the individual's effort ; it is the 
cumulative egotism of company, brigade, and divisions, that compels 
victory, when decisive results hang on the conduct of one man, whose 
example is a contagion. It was in this spirit that this admirable com- 
mander pushed to the front of the line. The volleys from the Mausers 
withered everything above the uneven surface ; it seemed to the panting 
men, worn with the upward rush through the woody entanglements, that 
the barbed wire fences had been flung enmasse — sped with satanic veloc- 
ity, to scrape the surface. Barely had Haskell stepped a pace forward to 
lead his battalion, when he reeled to the earth. Lieutenant Dickinson of 
the same regiment, turning impulsively to aid his chief, was struck in the 
arm but maintained his ministry. The men were taking such meager 
advantage as the irregularity of the ground afforded, to preserve their 
numbers for the death grapple, and did not see the fall of their chief. 
But Lieutenants Hardway and Roberts among them saw the disaster and 




— Iff". 



A TOOTH AND NAIL CONFLICT. 299 

called for volunteers to lift and carry the commander to a place of safety. 
The call was barely uttered when a dozen voices responded. Five went 
out into the pitiless hail and three of these were riddled. Colonel Haskell 
was dragged out of the vengeful maelstrom ; he was pierced with three 
severe wounds. His Lieutenant, Dickinson, paid for his devotion by an- 
other wound — which killed him. 

The assault led by Colonel Haskell was what might be called a tooth 
and nail conflict, for actually the men seemed to use their fists and feet 
as well as their guns. Haskell was a patriarch in appearance, with a long, 
white beard that floated backward, as he fled onward into the fire, the men 
of his command actually seeming to crowd upon each other to stop the 
flight of bullets that came toward the veteran chief. The Spaniards stood 
to their arms with a valorous constancy that revealed what they would be 
capable of in a better cause. Indeed, to the educated on-lookers who 
could not take part in the battle, they seemed indifferent to death, deter- 
mined only to wrest revenge from the fuemen despoiling them of their 
stronghold.. Fifty historians would be required to narrate in detail the 
heroic .episodes of the half mile of conflict, that resulted in the rout of 
the masters of this fortified Golgotha, for the entire plateau was a place 
of death deliberately planned and valiantly defended. 

The first guns heard from our ranks at El Caney — the battery of Cap- 
tain Hamilton, were equal to a reinforcement of a division of men — for it 
is one of the phenomena of the battlefield, that the soldier feels security, 
invincibility in fact, as the roar of his own guns breaks out behind him. 
For reasons never very clearly set forth, a movement of considerable con- 
centration was ordered within range of the enemy's guns. That is, the 
line of battle which is usually formed outside of the enemy's fire, was 
carried on at El Caney and to the south and eastward in the agony and 
stress of the fight. The resultant slaughter was in the very nature of 
such heedlessness lamentable. One regiment, the Thirteenth Infantry 
lost thirty per cent, of its number, the officers suffering out of proportion 
to the ranks. Nearly every man bearing the insignia of rank was either 
killed or wounded. It would be impossible to render more eulogistic tes- 
timony to men pursuing war, than the plain tale of what the right of the 
army withstood. Had the Spaniards known the havoc they had wrought, 
by a very slight reinforcement they might have compelled a retrogade all 
along that part of the line. Indeed had the Spaniards been of the fiber 
of the attacking forces, the right wing of the army must have been dis- 
persed. Nor was this an advance, a conquest of territory to assuage the 
ravages wrought on the maltreated remnant. The dead lay where they 



NO SIGN OF WAVERING. 301 

fell ; the wounded encumbered the open spaces, or if by chance they were 
■ hie to drag their mangled bodies under shelter, the prying eyes of the 
guerrillas searched them out and riddled the torn bodies with volleys of 
Mauser missiles. But in this most trying of war's vicissitudes, no one 
saw a sign of wavering, a movement in retreat, by the able bodied. The 
work of concentration under fire went on, in the crucial points of the 
battle, from July 1st to July 3d, nor after the continuous slaughter of 
hours, was it found achieved on the noon of that day. In almost humor- 
ous keeping with the imprevoyance of the march, the provision of mate- 
rials, food and what not, a balloon with unwieldly impedimenta was 
riddled by shrapnel and left to block the main artery of passage to the 
men under fire. The Regulars who marched in such order as the nar- 
row way admitted, moved into line under fire and died in groups, were 
entirely unprovided with surgeons. The surgeon of the Seventeenth 
Regiment, Major Ebert, was so exhausted by the continuous calls upon 
him that he fainted in the middle of an operation and was revived by a 
Boston journalist, who by chance had enough cold water to bathe the 
fevered victim. It was the authenticated testimony of those at hand, 
studying the episodes and phenomena of the manoeuvres, that twenty- 
five per cent, of the wounded who died were lost by the lack of the most 
ordinary medical aid provided for the battle line. Men badly wounded, 
too much hurt to move without aid, gasped and groaned two days, where 
they fell, before hospital assistance reached them. No commander can 
see a whole battlefield, but any commander can foresee and so order in 
advance that every man and appliance needed in every conceivable 
emergency shall be within reach, or as nearly within reach as human pre- 
vision can bring about. Most of the errors and shortcomings, however, 
were ascribable to causes far from culpable. It was to be on the line of 
fire, under the storm of shell, that the officers overlooked preliminaries. 
To illustrate, General Ludlow, the head of the engineers, so soon as the 
firing began, flew to the front to take active command, instead of remain- 
ing to supervise the mechanical details of his corps. 



PART IV. 

PRELIMINARY to the decisive operations of El Caney and San Juan, 
something of the work incumbent on a prudent army officer can be 
understood by a glimpse at some of the dangerous routine, involved in a 
rational advance over ground whose possibilities for defence are unknown 
to the invader. In fact, to fully comprehend the endless and inherent 
obstacles meant by a war of invasion, it is essential to glance for a mo- 
ment at audacities as thrilling in their way, though less inluridated by re- 
port, than the charge or bayonet grapple. General Lawton's division with 
headquarters at a dreamy little oasis in the wilderness of chapparal and 
cacti, El Pozo, five miles from Santiago, was from the 29th of June until 
the 3d of July a place of peril. No one knew what was immediately be- 
yond, no one knew whether a path would take cavalry, artillery or in- 
fantry in a single step into the range of the enemy's missiles, no one knew 
whether the enemy was swarming in masked battalions, or lurked in the 
convenient forks of the trees to slaughter the unsuspecting skirmishers. 
Here again, the deplorable inefficiency, shortcomings or unwillingness, or 
as our soldiery expressed it "dog cussedness " of the Cuban " patriots " 
manifested itself to a degree that made it difficult to keep the volunteers, 
at least, from falling upon the worthless ingrates, for whom the republic 
had declared war. They refused to do or dare a single step beyond the 
protecting bayonets of the Federal soldiers, though they had beguiled the 
commanding general into a belief that they knew every step of the way, 
and were holding back from attacking the "cowardly Spaniards," by the 
desire of showing their "generous allies" the difficulties which the patriot 
army had been compelled to face in the struggle for "Cuba Libre." 
Hence, to move forward over the ground prepared by the Spaniards for the 
destruction of whatever approached, after reaching certain distances, 
skirmishing squadrons of topographical engineers were sent out, and these 
modest, not to say obscure missions, performed vitally important functions 
so far as they were called into operation. Unhappily, they were not em- 
ployed to the extent prescribed by military ordinances, hence the diffi- 
culties which afterward beset what is called the "turning movement," to 
the north and east of Santiago. 

At six o'clock in the morning of June 29th, Lieutenant Guy Smith of 

(302) 



ENGINEERING DIFFICULTIES. 808 

the topographical engineers was directed to push out from El Pozo to- 
ward Santiago, and map every rood of the way, that the commanders 
might comprehend to an inch almost, the diversities of the terrain over 
which the charging troop was obliged to pass. He was given a company 
of the Seventh Regulars, under command of Lieutenant Durfee, and these 
fifty men and sixty Cubans set out on what would be called a forlorn 
hope, under ordinary circumstances. A rivulet large under the rains, but 
dry when the sun shone, the Rio Seco, formed the starting point or rather 
the boundary, where the United States troops patrolled. The educated 
topographers set their instruments at work, every instant expecting vol- 
leys from the trees above, from the dense clusters of chapparal or from 
the thousand and one natural hiding-places that an enemy, master of the 
country, would be apt to know, and the stranger could only find out by 
murderous experience. Hour after hour this breathless band crawled at 
much less than a snail's pace, for each man was forced to remain on the 
alert, his gun at his shoulder ready to avenge the death of the surveyors, 
immolated as it were on the altar of monotonous and inglorious duty. 

For, fantastically enough, to die in the scientific service of war seems to 
bring none of the acclaim, we so readily yield to the victim who falls in 
the charge, or in line of battle. A characteristic suggestion of Spanish in- 
consequence was found at a country residence, magnificent but deserted, 
the estate of an affluent merchant, sacked and gutted by the energetic 
Maceo. The place had been turned into a blockhouse ideally adapted to 
an ambuscade, had the Spaniards meant a "last ditch" war. But it was 
now a ruin. On the walls, incredible to say was found a crayon sketch 
of the entire chain of blockhouses and earthworks barring the road to 
Santiago. From this extraordinary carelessness the topographers were 
enabled to lay before the invading commander a fairly lucid plan of the 
circumvallating defences; though of course the natural obstacles of 
bush and brake, ridge and deep, were not shown. 

The little group of topographers had marched upon a plateau hardly 
more than three miles from the coveted city of Santiago. It was the first 
glimpse that any considerable body of the invaders had caught of the walls, 
and a cry of delight broke impulsively from the men, for even the streets, 
the houses, the time-worn tiles, the grey minarets, the romantic sugges- 
tion of an older world, dropped into the fanciful verdure of the new, 
ravished eyes acquainted only with our monotonous blocks, or our meager 
northern foliage. The ravages from the civil strife of Cubanos against 
Spaniards, were discernible in the broken crenelations of the walls, dis- 
mantled churches, a general decay wrought by the wrath of man, and not 



304 A CUBAN JUNGLE. 

the elements. The city, indeed, spread out like a vast, unwieldly chess- 
board, slanting downward from the Sierra Maestra, to the pellucid waters 
of the lovely bay. Brown ploughed fields, once affluent in coffee crops; 
vestiges of sugar patches and the thrift of a servile race of planters 
could be seen afar off, checkering the sloping plateau, in dreamlike quiet, 
as if war had never been heard of. Between the surveyors and the 
omnious outlines of blockhouses, rifle pits and defensive embankments, 
spread a vast gulf of what seemed stagnant water, but what was in 
reality the lush density of green, growing in murky swamps. This revealed 
one of the difficulties that the advancing legions would have to meet, 
when the final charge came. The Cubans called the place a jungle, and 
jungle it certainly was, for in the attempt to penetrate it, crawling and 
slimy and fearful things were startled in repulsive masses; vultures fled 
shrieking upward; all of the uncanny forms of nature seemed to have as- 
sembled in this sinister bulwark, a thousandfold more ominous than all 
the preparations of the Spaniards to torment the marching men. 

In obedience to his consign, to make himself master of every possibility 
of advance, Lieutenant Smith pushed from end to end of the sweltering 
wastes and morasses, to mark the most available points of entrance. After 
hours of experimenting and exhaustive labor, dim woody ways, dark al- 
most as caverns, were found here and there, where by agility and indif- 
ference to muck to the knees, it were possible to push on. It was not 
until after the Santiago blockhouses had been won by columns coming in 
from other than this direction, that the adventurous group found how 
far they had really advanced, further than any skirmishers that had come 
out on what is called the " Camino Real " — the state road, — not two miles 
from the heart of Santiago itself. Here the Spanish soldiers could be 
seen loitering, drilling, occupied in fact in all the routine of barracks. 
Groups came wandering from the town, and some of them walked squarely 
into the Yankee ambuscade, never dreaming that any of Shafter's men 
would be so adventurous as to come within half rifle shot often thousand 
guns, ready to sweep the ground as clean as a lawn mower would. 

Mangoes were growing in many of the openings, and our adventurous 
group had barely settled itself for observation, when little bands of 
women and children wandered suddenly from behind the walls or points 
of concealment, and began to fill their baskets with these, about the only 
food left to the poorer inhabitants. The Cuban contingent watched them 
with ferocious intentness, until these unwary seekers were within reach 
and then pounced on them, stifling their screams to prevent the alarm to 
the soldiery, but a few yards away. Among the food-seekers two or 



THE CITADEL OF EL MORRO. 305 

three lusty youths were seized and taken back to headquarters, for such 
information as they might be able to give the staff. One point of infor- 
mation gained from these unwilling witnesses, though they professed 
ardent sympathy for " Cuba Libre " was, that General Vara del Rey who 
had inflicted condign severities on the Cuban ranks in various encounters, 
had been compelled, even when marching at the head of his Spanish 
column, to disguise himself in woman's apparel, in order to escape the 
sworn vengeance of the rebel guerrillas. For a price had been placed upon 
his head, and the poor man was hardly sure that his own ranks might not 
take advantage of the ten thousand dollars, to sacrifice him to guerrilla 
vengeance. The topographers counted on passing the night in this place 
of peril, but the heavens ordered it otherwise, for a downpour of rain 
began at the very moment an audacious advance was planned to sketch 
the altitude of the fortifications. This rain was so continuous that further 
attempts were impossible, and in the darkness of night the march back 
may be imagined ; the condition of the men subjected to the sticky soil 
and the hardships of the forest. 

Not a man in the sixteen thousand in Shafter's force was ignorant of 
the obstacles to be encountered. Whimsically enough, El Morro was the 
dreaded enemy. For three hundred years, that mass of masonry has been 
the shield of Spanish domain. Nature had made it invulnerable, man 
had made it a horizon of death. Gibraltar itself is not more formidable 
to attack than El Morro. No sea gun can ever reach it ; no armed mass 
can approach or surprise it. Wrought from the primeval rock, El Morro 
is part of a bold granite headland. The ocean washes its base. Its 
upper sea battery, bristling with Krupp guns, is nearly one hundred feet 
above sea level. It has an all-around fire, commanding the sea front for 
many miles, due east and west along the coast, as well as over all the 
land within sight. The lower battery is constructed to command the 
narrow entrance to the harbor. The inway there measures 580 feet 
across. 

Opposite El Morro is another bold headland, surmounted by La 
Socapa, an old time fort dating to the time of Columbus. The guns of 
the lower battery of El Morro face the entrance. Short of blowing that 
headland of rock into the sea, El Morro may be deemed impregnable. 
The guns are ancient, but many rapid fire Hontoria and Ordonez rifles 
were added so soon as Cervera took refuge there. La Socapa, is of the 
old fortress type. Its elevation being less, it has neither the natural 
strength nor the range of El Morro, but it has a usefulness all its own, as 
formidable as its ally directly opposite; with the guns of Estrella Point 



306 LA SOCAPA AND ESTRELLA. 

battery it can rake any ship that may pass the entrance. While El 
Morro and La Socapa are designed to keep ships out, the Estrella Point 
battery is constructed to deal with such as may have forced an entrance. 
It is built of solid masonry, the counterpart of Fort Augusta, built by 
Spain in the island Jamaica, over three centuries ago. Cayo Smith, 
or Smith's island, nearly opposite Estrella Point was abundantly fortified. 
Beyond Estrella battery, on a small elevation there was an old time earth- 
work meant to finish anything that might have escaped the forts and bat- 
tery. Between the latter and the city, there are no fortifications. In 
time of peace the topmost wall of El Morro is used as a semaphore 
station. This, with a series of hill branches extend to the city, the dis- 
tance between the two being five miles. Owing to the narrow channel, 
one vessel only is allowed to enter or leave at a time. Hence the signal 
stations. 

It was piquantly suggestive of our restless activities as a commercial or 
business force, that the point selected for debarkation had been for years 
the scene of our irrepressible commercial enterprise. The activities of 
"Iron Kings "or "Coal Barons " had made this unknown, or vaguely 
outlined, segment of Cuba, a treasure-house of the iron industry of Penn- 
sylvania. The money of our operators, the sagacity of our wealth breed- 
ers, had developed that part of eastern Cuba, by opening up many miles 
of mineral lands, by a substantially constructed coast railway, with two 
elaborate piers, one on the coast and one in Santiago harbor itself. Rail- 
ways had been built to carry out the mineral treasures, and when the 
hour struck, these lines were of strategic value. The railway pier at the 
western terminus in Santiago bay is on a headland projecting well into 
the harbor. Just below the pier and headland, the shore of the bay runs 
inland almost a quarter of a mile. The very substantial and costly iron 
pier is lofty, and runs well out into the channel. Ocean going steamers 
load at its gangways. The hillside from which it runs, occupies a com- 
manding position of strategic importance. It lies just midway between 
i he city and El Morro. The main military road connecting the city with 
the fortifications at El Morro and the battery at Estrella Point, passes 
just inside the shore end of the pier. The position once taken by our 
men, the two fortifications were irretrievably isolated from that city. 
Any force holding such a point, commanded the channel opposite it. 

El Caney lies about sixteen miles northwest of Baiquiri. It is one of 
the termini of the El Cristo railway, a broad guage road connecting a 
number of inland points with Santiago. The march through the hills and 
mountains ending in the capture of El Caney, gave us another railway to 




1 " I if ' 
f 



308 YELLOW FEVEK. 

be used in investing the city proper. The station of this railroad is on 
the northern end of the main street, facing the harbor at the foot 01 Cmi- 
sha avenue. Holding the two railways meant absolute control of the 
whole district due east of Santiago. The engines and cars were of 
United States manufacture. The flat and ore cars when armor clad, 
ivould have been found very valuable and could have been used for rapid 
lire and Nordenfeldt guns. From Siboney to Santiago, a distance of six- 
teen miles to westward, two routes were open. One by the royal coast 
road, which passes over high mountains, and the other by the Juragua 
Company's railway, which skirts the coast to within one mile of Santiago. 
Neither of them is easy traveling, at most points the two routes are 
utterly inaccessible to each other. 

From the moment war was proclaimed, the Spaniards, who really cared 
for the end, put all their trust in the agency of yellow fever. There 
were very few who did not realize that the Yankees must inevitably win. 
But yellow fever is such an atrocious war-maker, deals out death so un- 
sparingly, that the jingo inconsequents made themselves believe that we 
would shrink from immolating our young and ardent youth in the 
shambles, where there was neither glory nor gain. For an army with 
banners is not so dreadful to those who know its harrowing decimation, 
as the loathsome fever. Yellow fever has been endemic in Cuba ever 
since the Spaniards conquered the island. The public records show it 
yearly, for over one hundred consecutive years. In all that time, Spain 
has taken no adequate measures to stamp out so dire a foe to her own 
children. The vast public presidio, or prison, at Santiago, has no outlet 
for drainage. At night, after the people are in bed, its accumulated filth 
is allowed to run down a public street to the sea. The military hospital 
situated on an elevation in the upper and rear part of the city, near 
Concha avenue, is a comprehensive establishment. Within its enormous 
enclosure there is a vast cesspool with no outlet. This poisons the air 
and infects the soil. While Spain has lost tens of thousands of soldiers 
and sailors in Cuba from preventable disease, the desolation has taught 
her no lesson. The wicked loss of life, and its cost to her as a nation, 
have not been examined or reformed. In times of peace her soldiers have 
died in thousands. The ten years' war— from 1868 to 1878— cost her 
200,000 men, the flower of the Spanish army, of whom 191,000 died in 
hospital — largely of climatic diseases, while less than ten thousand fell in 
battle or died of wounds received in action, and even these might have 
been saved by foresight. 

Spain's neglect of sanitation in Santiago de Cuba is duplicated in San 



NEGLECT OF SANITATION. 309 

Juan de Porto Rico. Her methods are fairly incomprehensible. The 
main military and naval hospital in Havana has 1,500 beds. It is a sub- 
stantially built place, near the end of the foul and pestilent harbor of 
Havana. All patients were sent to it from the army and ships, yellow- 
fever patients were not isolated. For many years the building was a cen- 
tre for distributing the poison of yellow fever, not only in the Antilles, 
but all over the world. 

The hospital was the medical storehouse for the island system of hos- 
pitals. All supplies including bedding were sent from it. Yellow fever 
was found at some port or town all the year round. In 1878, the Cuban 
pestilence reached New Orleans, costing thousands of lives and a money 
loss estimated at over 8200,000,000. The ideal Holt maritime quarantine 
system enabled New Orleans to shut it out. Britain had her experience 
with Jamaica after Spain was force'd to abandon it. Britain's sailors and 
troopers died there in thousands. It was a pest hole. Pure w r ater was 
introduced, the soldiers and sailors were instructed and watched, un- 
healthy sea level camps w T ere abandoned, the death rate fell from 121 per 
1,000 to 11.13, or less than half the death rate of New York, and this was 
due wholly to sanitary measures, camps in the mountains and the intro- 
duction of black regiments (West Indian negroes) officered by white men. 
Had Spain kept abreast with Britain, Cuba to-day would be healthful, 
and fairly safe for people of any clime. 

As there are few things done by man that seem to interest men so pro- 
foundly as the meeting of ranks in battle, so there are very few things 
under the contact of life against life so difficult to reproduce exactly as 
the phenomena of actual conflict. This ought to be readily understood by 
every reader of war history ; no one eye can see more than the swift hap- 
penings directly under a circumscribed line of vision ; no man is quick 
enough to impress instantly the meaning of the movements that end in 
the victory of one mass of the deroute of the other; hence, the thirty six 
hours of really titanic wrestling which Shafter's army underwent, forms 
almost as many absorbing episodes as there were minutes in that agoniz- 
ing interval, for agonizing it certainly was, to every man within the 
sphere of the Spanish guns ; not only within the sphere but far outside of 
it, for as has been said, death lurked in the most unexpected places. The 
Red Cross Samaritan took the wounded, no matter how far from the line 
of fire, never sure that the tree above him or the thicket beside him did 
not conceal an enemy secure in the density of the tropical undergrowth. 
The brief siege and the turbulent assault or series of assaults will prob- 
ably take up as many volumes of critical controversy as the endlessly dis 



310 PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS. 

puted assault upon the British lines at Monte St. Jean when Waterloo 
was lost and won. In the mele'e of the two engagements at El Caney 
and San Juan official reports vary. There were however many semi-offi- 
cials, non-combatants, vividly observant of every phase of the occasion, 
whose testimonies serve to fix the critical moments and identify most of 
the men who wrought the victory. Breckenridge, the Inspector-Gen- 
eral of the army, has already put his comrades under deep obligations by 
a narrative of what he saw, which equals in interest the famous narrative 
of Quartermaster-General Meiggs, of Hooker's "Battle above the 
clouds." 

In nearly every one of the thousands of newspapers published through- 
out the United States, the participants and victims of the Santiago cam- 
paign contributed personal observation of the battle; the combined testi- 
monies, if ever collated, would give definite account of every instant of 
time from the moment the armada left Tampa, until the flag of the re- 
public was flung out over the civic palace of Santiago. The abundance 
of testimony, while a reassurance to the historian, is at the same time an 
embarrassment, for many of the individual testimonies cover identical 
hours, minutes even, and hence, make a choice difficult. But it is to be 
said for the first time in war, that the men who fought it have been its 
most striking historians ; every regiment possessed its Xenophon, and it 
will be difficult to perpetuate such errors for example, as defaced the 
allied battles in Spain as for sixty years disfigured — even the disaster of 
Waterloo. Let the reader, curious to make himself an image of the man 
in action, compare the vigorous sketch of Captain John Bigelow of the 
Tenth Cavalry, with the reports of Generals Kent, Lawton and Brecken- 
ridge, covering in general the same episode : 

"Our Tenth Cavalry was encamped over to the left of El Caney and 
we had pickets thrown out toward Santiago. We could see the fighting 
over toward El Caney, through our glasses. We could hear the noise of 
the battle and could see our men emerging from the brush and advancing 
to attack the Spanish position. We watched the fight for some time, and 
then came the order to lay aside everything except arms and ammunition. 
Of course we knew what that meant. We piled our knapsacks and other 
accoutrements together, and I detailed a couple of men to guard them. 
We had to guard our things, not from the Spaniards, but from the Cubans. 

" Soon after this bullets began to come our way. It was the most mys- 
terious thing imaginable. We could see them strike around us and hear 
them singing through the air, but we couldn't tell where they came from. 
We knew the general direction, but no amount of looking in that direc- 






M 



Wi 



v 








Yellow Fever Hospital near Santiago. 




Railroad Bridge at Aguadores : Destroyed by the Spaniards. 



THE TENTH CAVALRY AT EL CANEY. 313 

tion disclosed any of the enemy. It is a good deal of a nervous strain to 
be ordered to stay still while the bullets are skipping around you. Occa- 
sionally a leaf cut off by a bullet would come floating gracefully down 
to us, in an easy, pleasant way that made us shiver. We got tired of lying 
still and doing nothing while under fire, and as there was no superior 
officer around I concluded every command would have to shift for itself: 
I started my troop forward (we were dismounted) to see if we could get 
up to the battle line and take some active part in the affair. We pushed 
on until we got near the edge of the bushes, and we found our battle 
line retreating. The retreat of the battle line seemed to enrage and 
arouse our men, for suddenly all started forward simultaneously over a 
line a half mile long. I heard no order,' and there could have been no 
order given along that line. It was one of those inspirations which some- 
times moves a large body of men. Out they swept from the bushes into 
the open space, our men with the rest. I saw no general officers. It was 
every man for himself, and all for the enemy. There was no regular line 
nor formation. It was a straggling mass fifty yards deep running across 
the open and firing over each others' heads at the hill. We could see the 
dust fly where the bullets struck on the Spanish defences. 

We were about half way up the hill, and I was just looking over the mass 
of men advancing up the steep, when I suddenly felt as if my left leg had 
been struck by a cannon ball, and as though my little finger were in a ma- 
chine that was grinding it to pulp. It didn't take me long to find that I 
was wounded. It seemed to me that I must be horribly wounded. I was 
afraid to look at that leg for fear it was entirely shot off. I called one of 
my men who cut my trousers open and found that the wound which had 
seemed so serious to me, was only a flesh wound through the calf of the 
leg. One bullet passed through my left little finger. A bullet ploughed 
a groove in my left shoulder. The one which went through my left thigh 
I did not feel at all, and did not know it had struck me until some time 
afterward. The Spanish sharpshooters were in the trees with smokeless 
powder, and they stayed up in the dense foliage of the treetops, while our 
men marched right under them. Under these conditions, we did not know 
of their presence, and could not distinguish their firing from that of our 
own men. They had unchecked opportunity to pick off the officers, and 
they improved it well. About twice as many officers were killed, as are 
usually killed in proportion to the relative number of officers and men." 

Philosophic Europe broke into a chorus of wonder when Thomas 
Carlyle, at the apogee of his fame, produced the military annals of the 
Seven years' War in which Frederic of Prussia was the commander. It 



314 THE HUMAN SIDE OF BATTLE. 

was not exactly supposed to be a waste of time on Carlyle's part, to in- 
corporate the testimonies of the humblest in the ranks, but it was some- 
thing so entirely new, that even Froude, Green and the long line of able 
writers who succeeded, rarely ventured to give the story of a people's do- 
ings, from the point of view of the humbler segments in the social scale. 
The history of this war however, would be a b;ire chronicle of cold 
official facts, without color, were the contributions made by the rank and 
file omitted. The human side of the battle was of course seen by the 
plain, private soldier, who, while nominally irresponsible, as a matter of 
fact has the crucial responsibility. For it is idle to say that the four or 
six officials, performing perfunctory duties, can move or in any sense 
change the volition of a hundred men. As a matter of fact, all battles 
are fought by the men in the ranks. But it so happens that the testi- 
mony of this handiwork was never so clear and striking, as in the aston- 
ishing conflicts at Santiago. Tennyson says in In Memoriam : " They 
speak their feeling as it is, and tell the fulness of their pain." 

What for example could be more elucidative of the mingled confusion 
and intrepid purpose of a body of men, than the adventure of Color- 
Sergeant Andrews of troop B in the Third Cavalry. He was tearing up 
the hill at San Juan with the impetuosity of a boy, although he has 
been in the service eighteen years, and in the climb from the ditch while 
holding the colors tenaciously, he was knocked over repeatedly. He clung 
to his precious charge. For a moment .in the melee, covered by the 
wounded, and helplessly entangled in the ditch, he called out to his lieu- 
tenant to take the flag, but the roar of the battle drowned his voice and, 
unable to rise, he thrust the standard upward. " When I could get my 
head out I sat up, and I could see the line of battle for a mile. There 
are no words in any language, that I know, to tell what the fellows were 
doing. The bullets came like the swash of water against the side of the 
ship, as I heard it many a night sailing from Tampa. The nippers would 
not cut the wires, and then you should see the men brace themselves with 
their guns and jump upon them and push them over. Sergeant Mulhearn 
grabbed the colors and planted them on the highest spot on the top of 
the hill. Fully 200 shots were fired at the banner and it was riddled al- 
most to a rag. My clothes were cut into ribbons, and I got to within 300 
yards of the main body of Spaniards, just as our fellows were capturing 
a regimental flag with the letter K on it. About that time, Colonel 
Roosevelt and Major Westervelt of the Rough Riders came up and I 
shouted to them to lie down or thev would be shot But they wouldn't. 
Major Westervelt was shot in the neck, and the fellow* that went to take him 



"WE'VE BEEN HERE ALWAYS." 315 

out when they came back said, that as soon as he was bandaged he began to 
puff his pipe. Then when he found out he was not seriously hurt, he in- 
sisted on returning to the line, but the surgeon objected. lie felt him- 
self all over and remarked : ' Well, I guess I'm boss, and I'm going.' 
He had barely got to the line of fire, when he was shot again and this 
time knocked out." 

What volumes we should be spared on the battle of Waterloo for ex- 
ample, if some color-sergeant in the maddening charge with Ney, had been 
able to tell us precisely what did happen in those fateful hours of the 
swift-coming twilight, when as the British accounts have it, Wellington 
felt that the storm had broken, and that he might release his sheltered 
regiments from the cover that had saved them all day, and launch them 
against the worn-out fragments of Ney's hideously misused cavalry. 

Valiant men, who never dreamed of throwing the sheaves of their mod- 
est glory in the wallet of time for remembrance, wrote private letters, 
which proud kinsfolk published for the comfort of others — for the emula- 
tion of future heroes. In the subjoined, the attentive reader will observe 
how the writer verifies other narratives, and yet wrote only to transcribe 
his feelings and the scene, to those he loved. His kinsfolk had no idea 
that the official reports would identify the officer — but there were no con- 
fusing number of shoulder-straps in the first entrance to San Juan. 

" We have been in Cuba now for twenty days. The other day, as we 
were changing position from the left to the right of the line, some soldier 
in the trenches called out: 'Have you fellows just got in?' A man in 
my company called back : ' H — 1, no ; we've been here always.' And in- 
deed, it seems as if we had been here for years, so many, many hot miles 
have we marched ; so many wet nights have we slept on the bosom of 
Mother Earth. We were landed without transportation, and everything 
we have is what we carry. I have not even had a blanket. We sleep in 
our clothing and wallow in the mud. We live on hardtack, bacon and 
coffee. For nearly two weeks we have been daily and nightly under fire, 
except when a flag of truce is up. The great event, so far as I am con- 
cerned, was the fight of July 1. We were aroused at three in the morn- 
ing and put in march at the first peep of dawn, over a road which we had 
built the day before. We waded through a river, and then were halted, 
while on our left a battery of artillery opened fire on the enemy, who 
was shelling our balloon. We were under the balloon, and you may 
easily appreciate the interest we took in the proceedings. Shell and 
shrapnel shrieked about us, the angry buzz and vicious bursting of the 
shells seeming to be on every side. A piece of shell tore through a man's 



316 



UNDER A PITILESS FIRE. 



thigh. The noise was terrifying, the effect of shrapnel being dreadful 
when it hits. Fortunately, it does not hit often. 

" Our battery silenced the fire of the enemy, and we pushed on for- 




A LETTER FROM HOME. 



ward. Another river was waded, but it was only a little more than knee 
deep. On its further bank whistled the enemy's bullets. The men 
crouched down and rushed from cover to cover. We turned to the left; 
thicker and faster flew the bullets, which tore seams in the hot summer 
air, all about us, above us, on our right and left, and at our feet. A part 



"COLONEL, WHAT ORDERS?" 817 

of the company ahead of mine balked upon an open space. I drove them 
on, and my own company followed me. The regiment was soon huddled 
together in a bend of a river, surrounded by brush and trees. A few mo- 
ments and the order came for Captain Turner's company to move for- 
ward ; another moment and Captain Kennon followed him. Out into an 
open, grassy field, where the hum of insects was replaced by the veno- 
mous 'zipp' of the deadly bullet. 'Not to cross the river.' Such was 
the order. Zipp, zipp, zipp came the bullets. The air was full of them. 
What to do? Nothing but stay there and be hit. Two more companies 
came up, and all fell back but mine. But I was ordered to join on the 
left of these, so I ordered my company back. « I'm struck,' called out a 
man. I hastened to him. His arm was bored through, and the rich ar- 
terial blood was spouting his life away. I called a man to help me, and 
while the bullets fell like rain about us we put a tourniquet on his arm. 
The bullet had entered his side. Poor fellow! The blood was stanched 
there, and we helped him — carried him, rather — to a place where he would 
be sheltered from sun and bullets. 

" But our line had gone back. We took him with us, the bullets 
around us seeming almost like a solid wall of lead and brass, for the 
brutes were using brass-covered bullets. There is the colonel. ' Colonel, 
what orders?' 'Move forward,' and forward again we went, the oolonel 
going with us. He crossed the river, I after him, my compan}' following. 
Here we breathed, for we were under the shelter of the bank. I placed 
my men in a hollow. The colonel sent my second lieutenant back with 
orders for the other companies to join us. The poor boy was shot through 
the heart after giving the order to two companies. I caught my breath 
and plunged again into the storm to see where we were, where the enemy 
was, what we were to do. On either hand were Spanish works, the one 
to the left being Fort San Juan. It sat on a high, steep hill, with a wide, 
flat, grassy plain in front, and a barbed-wire fence for us to climb. Oh, 
that fence ! Many and many a fine fellow failed to cross it. There, dear 
Sandy Wetherill, the last of the ' Old Sixth ' left to us, was killed, a bul- 
let going through his forehead. 

"A line was forming in the field. I went back and brought out the 
company, forming on the right of the line. There was the rattle of war 
the loudest. The crack of our rifles and those of the enemy, the whizz 
of the bullet, the shouting of officers, the groans of the wounded, the 
sound of the light artillery, the bursting of shells. 

" We began to go forward. I got in front of the company and called, 
4 Come on, boys,' and the brave fellows went forward on a run, across the 




- jo 1 ? CaV 




A-WlKoffr 




OOHHrt HAMILTON 
<\%CaV. 





li Hw ■ 




OFFICERS KILLED BEFORE SANTIAGO. 



318 



MINISTERING TO THE WOUNDED. 819 

field and up the spur of the hill on which was the fort. Here we found 
ourselves ahead of the rest. A Gatling gun opened on the enemy with 
a noisy rattle, and with deadly effect. The Spaniards were firing from 
trenches, we from the open, but the storm of bullets from the machine 
gun seemed to shake them. I saw several run. I sent a man down to 
the regiments who were forming at the foot of the hill to tell them that 
if they moved forward at once the place was ours and begged them to 
advance. Then with my company I pushed on, and was the first officer 
to reach the summit. A few Spaniards were still there, the rest were re- 
treating. I directed the arms to be taken from the wounded and dead 
Spaniards, and fire to be opened on the retreating enemy. They started 
to make a stand, but the others now coming up the hill, and lining up on 
either side, poured volley after volley into them and they sought safety 
in precipitate flight. An attempt was made later to retake it but was 
repulsed. In the evening we were ordered to the left, and intrenched our 
position. 

"Eleven officers out of thirty-one, 120 men out of about 450, killed 
and wounded, that is the record of the Sixth on the 1st of July. Every 
day my company has been under fire, both of artillery and infantry. It 
was worth a man's life to stand erect. A bullet came within less than six 
inches of my head as I was taking my breakfast. It lodged in a tree two 
feet away." 

In this Hadean crucible of war the fabric of painfully repressed lies, 
perished. The atmosphere was clarified; the Spanish soldiery were 
stupefied to find that surrendering themselves to the "Yankee butchers" 
did not mean instant scalping, as their presses had forewarned them. For 
even though the hospital and medical provisions were painfully, criminally 
stinted, the wounded Spaniard, like the wounded soldiery of the repub- 
lic, were tenderly cared for; shared the meager comforts of the invading 
ranks, both in the Red Cross refuges and the military hospitals. This 
humanity which was so natural, that it was unnoticed by our soldiers, 
evoked a praise from the foreigners that is hardly flattering to the Euro- 
pean conduct of war. Captain Webster of the Norwegian military staff, 
bore this testimony : 

" One thing which specially pleased me was the magnanimity with 
which the United States hospital corps ministered to the wounded Span- 
iards found on the battlefield. They were picked up and placed in the 
ambulance wagons and carried to the rear, where they received the very 
best medical attention. American surgeons on the battlefield would 
bandage the wound of a Spanish soldier to stop the flow of blood till the 



320 A BRITON'S STORY. 

ambulance wagon arrived. The hospital service of the American army 
is worthy of the highest commendation. 

44 1 was told by American officers that the Cubans killed wounded 
Spaniards with their machetes, but this barbarous practice was stopped 
by the officers and men of the United States army. 

44 The Cubans could not be seen when an engagement opened. They 
knew nothing about scientific warfare. The men are not trained ; they 
fight as an organized mob. The Cubans rendered very little service to 
the invading army, except as guides." 

A startled Briton, reporting the campaign for the war office in London, 
witnessed this characteristic trait : 44 In the whirlwind crisis of the San 
Juan attack, an officer leading Regulars was struck, at short range, in the 
cheek. The Mauser bullet made a small, clean hole, and came out through 
the side of its victim's nose. He did not know he was hurt until another 
officer, seeing his face bleeding, jokingly said : ' Why man, you're 
wounded, mortally wounded — look at the blood. I don't know but you're 
killed already — look at the hole in your nose. You've got four nostrils, 
man, if you don't get plugged up, you'll be going about breathing like a 
porpoise.' With that he led his comrade off to the hospital, to convince 
him that he was disabled by holding a mirror to his face." 

But fitful glimpses of the enormities going on in the small space 
beleaguered by an army, reached the multitudes in the rear as far as 
Siboney. For the track of an invading army is precisely like a city that 
has been pillaged and dismantled. The roadways improvised for the 
swift rush of the fighting cohorts, relapse into worse than the quagmires 
and tangle hastily converted by corduroying, cutting and filling to give the 
artillery space. From the sound and fury of the fight, to the ghastlier 
environs of the field hospitals, the non-combatants, the stragglers, the 
thousand diverse personalities of an army in movement, huddle or crawl 
or ply an obscene trade in the pillage of the helpless, the robbery of the 
wounded. Added to these repellent groups, in this campaign were the 
surly mobs of Cubans, muscular whether to ply machete and stolen fire- 
arms, or ravage the miserable remnants of the soldiery at their mercy. 
****** 

An encounter of soldiery in a country like Cuba, or our own for that 
matter, is fertile in surprises. It is the preconcerted thing that never 
happens. To stand up on an open plain and deliver volleys into the faces 
of men distinctly seen by each side, is the quintessence of soldierly per- 
fection in European armies. But it has been very rare since the Thirty 
Years' War, that a European army has been called upon to encounter 




Boat Club House, Santiago. 




Mining Village near Santiago. 



EACH REGIMENT A CORPS. 828 

natural obstacles of the really insurmountable sort that tried the muscles, 
as well as the nerves of the soldiery in our Civil War, and in this brief 
but gigantic operation at Santiago. Nor will the reader fully comprehend 
the tortures of mind and body involved in what seems to the outsider a 
brief interval, but to the men engaged, a year of phantasmal futility with 
no reward at the end. In other words, at half the force exerted and in- 
finitely less cost of life, battles that have given their commanders renown 
have been won in every war. It is therefore impossible to understand 
the magnitude of the dangers encountered, conquered, without follow- 
ing step by step every regiment, almost every platoon. For, as a mat- 
ter of fact, so soon as launched in the labyrinth of the battle plateau, 
each regiment was a corps in itself, undertaking the manoeuvres of a grand 
strategic operation, while unconscious of the influence that each of these 
integral parts were exerting on the whole. 

But with the third of the officers slain and twelve per cent, of each 
regiment incapable of moving, wounded or dead, a conviction suddenly 
settled upon the minds of the masses, after thirty-six hours of titanic 
wrestling, that there was neither victory in further effort nor security in 
retreat; exactly the frame of mind that precedes the dissolution of organ- 
ized armies. In this juncture, many of the commanders on the night ol 
July the first, urged General Wheeler to withdraw. They saw nothing 
but disaster in remaining where they were, and extinction if they at- 
tempted to advance. But Wheeler had been in dilemmas of a more try- 
ing sort in the Civil War. He had been surrounded by the bayonets of 
the Federals, and many a time had cut his way through massed ranks 
which were quite as formidable as the barbed wire bulwarks, stone walls 
and clay defences of the Spaniards. 

The crafty old Confederate knowing the effect of a combined remon- 
strance to a distant commander (Shafter was at the time ill on a transport) 
wrote to his chief saying: "I presume the same influences are being 
brought to bear on you that are working with me. But it will not do. 
American prestige would suffer irretrievably if we give up an inch; we 
must stand firm." And yet at this very moment, when hope was extinct, 
when brawn and muscle were at their last exertion, when the most ardent 
were chilled by the empty belly and the parched throat, cumulative causes 
were at work to end the extraordinary situation. Cervera's fleet was quit, 
ting the harbor of Santiago. 

General Breckenridge, touching the conditions on the night of July 2d, 
in his report to the Secretary of War, departs thus widely from the tone 
pf official literature: 



324 THE BLACK FLIGHT OF BULLETS. 

"Doubtless, through telegrams and otherwise, there have been sufficient 
indications of the intense strain in the whole military situation on the 
held of operations which led to the consultation at the El Pozo house the 
night of July 2, and some of the general officers favored a retrograde 
movement during the day or two prior to our intrenchments taking shape 
and the armistice being agreed upon. . . . Probably it is now evi- 
dent to all that it was far better to stand steadfast, and perhaps quite pos- 
sible to advance rather than retreat so near the Fourth of July, and cer- 
tainly we have demonstrated our ability to hold our own." 

While the enemy's flag remains in sight, while the embrasures spit fire, 
and death comes in torrents, no matter how much has been won, victory 
lias not been gained. And though we had crushed the volcanic outpour- 
ing of El Caney, the thunders at San Juan and the mangled lines strug- 
gling and crawling through the gullies, lingering by the streams, made it 
plain to the rushing ranks of reinforcements, that the decisive point had 
not been won. San Juan embodied vaguely to the minds of the hurrying 
ranks the formidable personality of the Malakoff. One of the extraordi- 
nary incidents of the battle as it arranged itself now, was the transposi- 
tion of columns in the dense thickness of the undergrowth. The divisions 
of Kent and Sumner crossed each other unseen, and when they emerged 
into the line of fire, they were found to be in exactly reversed positions. 
This itself will give a reader uninformed in military technicalities, a vivid 
idea of the maddening noise and confusion going on, within the eight 
miles of fire the battlefield comprised. For if two friendly bodies of men 
could pass each other, oblivious each of the presence of the other, how 
easy would it have been for an enterprising foe to place a force in a posi- 
tion to destroy legions moving at such disadvantage. It was late in the 
afternoon when the tide of battle became congested in front of what may 
be called the headquarters of the invading army at El Pozo. A battery 
of artillery which had painfully worked itself to this point of vantage, 
while by no means disconcerting the enemy, brought down upon the gath- 
ering masses of Kent, Sumner, Lawton and Hawkins, the deadly fire of 
every Mauser in the enemy's blockhouses. Hawkins himself seemed to 
breathe the intoxication of joy under the ordeal. He rode at the head of 
his infantry brigade, across the plain and up the steep hillside commanded 
on three sides by fire, and pushed determinedly forward, absolutely un- 
conscious that he was the best target of the thousands on the field. The 
infantry moved like a train of cars, with dismounted cavalry clustering 
by their side. It seemed as though they disdained to use the old-fash- 
ioned muskets, for they moved implacably forward, the brilliant colors of 




BUILDING A CORDUROY ROAD. 



326 THE MAELSTROM OF THE MAUSER. 

the flag accentuating the precision of the line. Slight as the incident 
was, Hawkins' unostentatious tranquillity, as he took off his hat, with a 
slight gesture of courteous command, stiffened the sinews of the marching* 
men. And it would be almost within the line to say that they met with 
derision the black flight of bullets and the shrieking canister, as they bore 
onward with gaping ranks, to the citadel of the enemy's resistance. 

Ordinarily, in fact universally, by the concomitant testimony of the 
European critics and monitors, this movement was a criminal impossi- 
bility. No soldier had ever been called upon to walk up to unbroken 
walls, to face, tear away, break down or in any way whatsoever, overcome 
thick networks of barbed wire, one strand of which suffices to stay the 
momentum of ten thousand herded cattle on the plains. Yet, under the 
fire of the Spanish embrasures, in the maelstrom of the Mausers, those 
who had the calmness to watch, could see bayonets twisting the wire, 
hatchets chipping them, or some stalwart fellow, with his gun bracing 
him, trampling the wire and holding it down for the others to pass over. 
" It is not war," exclaimed the German attache', " but it is magnificent. 
Men who can make such soldiers as that could never be conquered by all * 
the armies of Europe." And over the entire eight miles, heroic insanity 
of this sort was seen during these two abysmal days. More incomprehen- 
sible still to the foreigner, accustomed to the methodic warfare of the 
books, whether by an oversight or the instinct of the men themselves, the 
bayonets were not fixed on the guns. Which either meant that our sol- 
diery, as by an interpenetrating, common consent, had determined to give 
the Spaniards no time to fight body to body, or that the enterprise seemed 
so hopeless that none expected to reach that last stage of desperation, 
when men meet, bayonet to bayonet, a thing very rarely seen in war. 

But the battle was fought by the colonels, majors and the captains: 
the division commanders, the brigade commanders, had followed their 
orders in aligning their troops, the troops themselves saw the work that 
must be done and resolutely went at it. The darkness on that space of 
carnage fell as suddenly as the daylight came in the morning : and while 
this heroic struggle had won the outward and almost invincible defences 
of Santiago, the last range of a despairing but undismayed army was still 
between the war-worn ranks and the city. As I said before, other causes 
were at work to make it unnecessary to further prove the valor of our 
soldiery or the abnegation of the line and staff. It is not surprising that 
with the relaxation of the night, with the tension gone, dismay and doubt 
reigned at headquarters, and that simultaneously with Sampson's despatch 
electrifying the country, the Cabinet was stupefied by an ominous hint 




■J 



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' 











EVERY MAN HIS OWN ENGINEER. 329 

from Shafter that his energies were worn out, that without a redouble- 
nient of his army, he could neither hold what he had won, nor safely 
retreat. 

The torrid hours of the July night were passed by the regimental rem- 
nants under the fire line, in burrowing. Every man became his own 
engineer. To remain on the surface, quiescent, was inevitable death. 
The ground was transformed into monster mounds where the turf and 
the bushy sedge had softened the arid hillsides or occasional level, the 
morning found strange protuberances of reddish earth, backed by a 
cavity large enough to afford a grave-like covert for the outstretched 
warrior. Sprawled at full length with his head to the ridge the fighter 
was safe from the incessant search of the Mauser. He was able also to 
rest his gun on the level earthwork and by quickly sighting, give the 
enemy a taste of the unrest he had been inflicting the day before. It 
would be hard to make any one realize who had not been under fire, the 
swiftness with which men untrained in emergencies, seize and adapt them- 
selves to the chances of warfare. To look at these recumbent, sprawling, 
dirt-bedraggled ranks on the 3d of July, it would have been assumed 
that they had passed a novitiate in burrowing, in improvising defences 
against foes armed with such advantages as smokeless powder and repeat- 
ing arms. Confident, or rather, reassured of existence until the time of 
charge came, a poignant anguish of another sort arose. There was no 
food at hand. The paths the army had passed over, even if found, were 
turned into quagmires by the diluvian rains, they were littered with de- 
bris, the cast-off garments of the men, the innumerable impedimenta that 
oozes from an army as the rage of battle transforms the human into a 
mere fighting machine. The weight of an ounce becomes a ton, as men 
are shifted under fire, and only the most indurated veteran foresees far 
enough to cling to his haversack, bulging with a stated supply of rations. 
These weights had been lost or cast aside, in the ten thousand shiftings 
of the thirty hours' battlings: hence at the very moment food was much 
the most imperative need, it was almost totally lacking. Neither the 
grewsome hardtack nor the equivocal salt meat were to be had. Coffee, 
that support and mainstay of the fighter under every privation, was rare even 
among the staff or the line. An empty stomach is a delusive counsellor. 
It is the ruin of strategy, the destruction of armies. Yet the extraordi- 
nary ranks which had been defying immemorial precedent in attack, 
added another proof to the adage that no rule holds in war. For in spite 
of hunger, in spite of the ominous aftermath of rumors that flew along 
the line, the ironside tenacity of the ranks never for an instant relaxed. 
18 



330 THE REVIEW OF STRATEGY. 

The jovial quip, the biting sarcasm arose from the clustered figures 
wherever the din of the rifle fell long enough for the accents of the voices 
to be heard. Not a man of the burrowed ten thousand dreamed of what 
was in store and not a man gave the slightest evidence that he cared. 
But at the headquarters the peril had effaced the wonder of what was 
done, and even in the throes of this peril, before the plight of Cervera was 
known, the fateful resolution was reached to demand the surrender of the 
foe, whose advance would have been our destruction, whose defiant delay 
would have checked the campaign until another army could have been 
brought to the coast, to protect the one we had wasted. 

******** 
During the awful hours of hunger, expectancy of no hopeful sort, when 
the forces of nature were lowest, when the blood crept and the nerves 
pricked when " time was a maniac scattering fear, and life a fury slinging 
flame," as Tennyson sings, the observant philosopher noted that the 
Regular bore the strain with preternatural composure. Wherever pro- 
fanity and the obscene gibe were heard, it was known there were no 
Regulars ! Brave and fine as the volunteers were, they were not the ad- 
mirable phalanx the Regulars were found in every emergency. The vol- 
unteer is a coquette in campaign. He demands the incessant regard of 
the country. He must have his every movement chronicled, his disci- 
pline lauded, his bravery adulated. Taking war as a " vast picnic," a 
" good time " when all the rigors of social propriety are relaxed, he insists 
that his doings are precedents ; his obedience wonder-working, his naive 
curiosity to test the utmost that bullets, bombs and the infernalities of 
war can do, the cap and crown of heroism. " When I hear a soldier 
swear," testifies an observant historian of all the momentous movements 
at El Caney and San Juan, " I know without looking that he is a volun- 
teer." As was noted in all the despatches recounting the scramble of the 
Rough Riders, the colonel was compelled to admonish the men to swear 
less and to fight more. But the Regular neither swears nor demonstrates. 
He chews tobacco in the stress of hunger, occupies his hands in brighten- 
ing his toggery, in verifying the efficiency of his Krag-Jorgenson. But in 
the matter of profanity it is worth the study of the philosophic to trace 
the process, which evokes from the victim of a bullet, the almost invari- 
able exclamation "My God, I'm hit." The volunteer if he has breath 
enough, however, is more profuse in his profanity and empties his exple- 
tives in proportion to the painlessness of his wound. Yet at the same 
time it was the concurrent testimony of chaplains and surgeons that a 
general religious sentiment ran in a strong current among the majority of 



A REMNANT OF PURITAN BLOOD. 331 

the Regulars and volunteers, as gauged by the evidences afforded in the 
hospitals. In the pockets or among the private appurtenances of a large 
majority of the wounded, Bibles and Testaments and other tokens of 
churchly attachment were found in a large majority of cases. But more 
impressive than this the foreign observer remarked with surprise on the 
first Sunday morning when the army stood at bay before the bulwarks of 
the besieged city, when the bells of Santiago rang for church service the 
men in the invading army were seen with a Bible in one hand and a 
musket in the other. It was the conviction of the old world observer that 
a remnant of the Puritan blood still ran in the veins of descendants gen- 
erally believed to be anything but Puritan. The men under him were a 
study and delight to the transformed rebel, " Joe Wheeler " who in other 
days made campaigning very serious work for the armies of the Union. 
The boyish gaiety of his Confederate tatterdemalions found no equivalent 
among the decorous Regulars, moving at his will like so many machines. 
But he was reminded of the Confederate stress and storm, by the scant 
larder and the fluctuating phases of victory or the counsel of retreat. 
The general, seated in his meagerly furnished quarters, one day, had a 
Spanish deserter brought before him. The Spaniard was a comely, even 
jovial youth, obviously relieved to find himself beyond the uncertainties 
in store for his beleagured brethren. The interpreter gives this piquant 
narrative of the colloquy : 

He admitted he had come into our lines to save his neck ; he had 
been sent out to forage and had slipped over. The Spanish soldiers, he 
said, were not by any means discouraged; they were indignant at not 
being properly fed and at not receiving any money. The officers, he said, 
took care to have their wants attended to, and had all kinds of luxury at 
their mess, including wine, ice, and meat. Since General Toral had suc- 
ceeded General Linares, things had somewhat bettered. They had been 
paid three dollars, the first money they had received in six months, but 
the officers had been paid with something like regularity. There was no 
bread for the men, but the wealthy people could get it. The ice factory 
at the head of the harbor was still running. The hospital was full of 
wounded. The Spanish Sisters of Mercy remained, tending the sick, but 
the Cuban sisters had left, and also the Sisters of Charity. All the stores 
were closed, but General Toral had seized all provisions in them and 
taken possession of the wine shops. When the deserter left, the Spanish 
had not looted any houses, but had seized horses and mules left by the 
pacificados, and were slaughtering them for the army. The Spaniards, 
he said, had from 17,000 to 20,000 troops in the city. Cervera, had 



332 



WHAT THE DESERTER TOLD. 



supplied the army with ammunition and guns. When asked if the 
Spanish liked the Cubans, he promptly replied: "No, no. They are 




GENERAL JOSE TORAL Y VELASQUEZ. 

cowardly and treacherous, and the Americans will soon find that out. 
While the Spaniards would always fight, they were tired of the war ; 



THE FEAR OF DEATH. 333 

they did not think Cuba was worth fighting for. If the Americans cap- 
tured Cuba, many Spanish soldiers would desert and settle there, because 
they knew they could earn an easy living by farming, but they would 
never stay under the treacherous rule of the Cubans. He was told to 
return to his lines, as he was not wanted. He replied that he did not 
want to go, and upon the general threatening to shoot him, having sus- 
picions that he was- a spy, he replied: "If I go back, I will be shot, so I 
would as soon be shot here." 

It is the strongest instinct of life in all ranks of animated things to 
fear and abhor death. Our organs seem to inherit this shrinking; the 
dread of death by pain, is the phenomena we call cowardice. The ex- 
planation of the interest mankind takes in battle, in war, arises from 
the consciousness of this. For no man differs from his fellow in the 
shrinking from the ghastly mangling, the carnage of the bullet and bomb. 
The heroism, therefore, that evokes wonder and adoration, consists in the 
degree in which men suppress that natural terror and perform the work 
assigned them like sentient machines, governed by impulses quite beyond 
the normal developments of resolution. The single difference between 
valor and recreancy, is, that the heroic fiber feels, thrills, but bears ; the 
coward collapses under the shock and seeks escape. But indeed, in this 
state, the victim is as often paralyzed by a mental disease as the subject of 
apoplexy. Cowardice is simply the inability of the mind to control the 
body's mechanism in the perfect hold the mind possesses over the body. 
Now the battlefield has an atmosphere of its own. The mind, by some 
quite indefinable process, acts with a million eyes and sees the cumulative 
chances against life. No man ever fell into the line of march toward 
battle without a conviction that death awaits him. Hence a panic, the 
instant eclipse of the reasoning faculties, is as apt to arise from those who 
would be heroes, as from those who seem cowards. It is largely a matter 
of accident ; some of the most valiant warriors that ever dared death, 
have fallen into panic. It is only men of unconquerable pride, who can 
resist this moral cataclysm. There is no training, no safeguard that can as- 
sure a commander against this temporary aberration. This is to be borne 
in mind by the millions who exult in the hardihood and constancy dis- 
played in the Santiago campaign, for in this enterprise above all others re- 
corded in war, the causes and conditions were ideally calculated to create 
the atmosphere in which panic is inevitable; the wild and weird country, 
with its aggressive shrubberies, its uncanny animal life, its mysterious 
deer>s of impenetrable gloom, its corrugated walls of soil that imprisoned 



334 IN THE VERY VORTEX. 

the limbs and clogged the steps, the volleying deaths from above, where 
instead of birds, the Spaniards lurked among the branches : the havoc 
wrought from massed bodies, arising out of the very ground. Death fly- 
ing from every direction, sped by a mechanism that made no sound and 
emitted no smoke. All this was calculated to disturb the constancy of 
the most perfectly trained soldiery. That Shafter's legions endured them 
and wrought effectively, is as impressive as the valiance that won Auster- 
litz or Marengo. 

Official reports and eyewitnesses record but one instance of panic in 
the pandemonium of death, that met the converging columns of Kent's 
division. The seventy-first volunteers, a New York regiment of admir- 
able materials, was given the order to allign on the left of Hawkins' 
brigade. This movement brought them into the very vortex of the 
Spanish fire. The leading battalion plunged forward, the hissing and 
hurtling lead seemed to clamor for life ; the men quivered in bewilder- 
ment, paused, the instinct of preservation, the inexpressible something 
that makes the soldier oblivious, that, in battle at least, it is not all of 
death to die, overwhelmed the file leaders ; there was a quiver of hesitancy, 
and in that moment the soldier's shield and defender, pride, was lost. 
The mass turned, in panic, and for an instant the doom of the whole 
division was sealed. For there is nothing so swiftly contagious as 
terror, unless it be daring. An instant's hesitation or hesitancy on the 
part of the officers, and Shafter's army would have been a body of fly- 
ing shreds and patches. But the hurricane roar of the guns the ghastly, 
venomous hissing of the Mausers, drowned the dastard cry, of " sauve qui 
peut," a cordon of the uncontaminated uprose in a flash, and the ordeal 
was ended. But had General Kent not been on the spot, even the drawn 
sword and pointed guns might not have stayed the unmanned groups. 
The general ordered the battalions of the regiment still intact, to lie down. 
This brought the chaos of fear to a pause. It gave the wretched culprits 
time to recover, and when they were again called upon, they were all that 
men needed to be. 

Such momentary aberration has been known in all armies in all times. 
One of the most valorous bodies in the corps that performed Napoleon's 
most resounding prodigies in Italy, was for a moment overcome in the 
same way on the plateau of Rivoli. The general promptly deprived them 
of their colors. In the succeeding engagement the regiment thus tar- 
nished, eclipsed the audacity of the most intrepid bodies, that won the 
miraculous battle of Areola and the flag restored to them was thereafter 
identified with the most glorious regiment that marched from Naples to 
Moscow. 



PART V. 

IT is characteristic of our many strained race that it is the jocular form 
that seems to come to the lips, no matter how grave the ordeal It 
was instantly known from end to end of the harassed line, that "old Shaf- 
ter " was playing the Spaniards a " bluff." For by that-inscrutable clair- 
voyance with which the very minds of persons in authority seem to be 
apprehended by the multitude, every man in the outworn ranks knew 
that desperation alone held them to the ground they had won. It is easy 
to conceive the immense sigh of relief that went up through the dim re- 
cesses of chapparal and palm, over the beaver-like mounds that engirdled 
Santiago, when white flags were seen waving wherever a point of vantage 
could be gained. Nor was it less humorous that as the morning wore on 
our imperiled commanders made plaint against the Spaniards that they 
were taking advantage of the truce to strengthen their works and run 
out embankments, where, in the event of a resumption of hostilities a 
broadside or enfilading fire could be brought to bear from end to end of 
our improvised fortifications. Again we were indebted to the Cubans 
for a gratuitous augmentation of our perils, for the Spanish dogged'. v 
made answer that the rebels had not recognized the flag and were cany- 
ing on their accustomed warfare of sneaking assassination and predation. 
But the flag brought a rebound to the old gaiety, the old confidence. 
Ihe men could rise to full height and from favorable points look far down 
into the city, watch the people passing, watch the normal activities of 
life going on very much as though the thin line of blood and iron had 
coalesced, and the pandemonium of attack had passed. But the sights 
were not pleasant to witness, for the roads were filled with the dying or the 
wounded, and the stench of the decaying horses covered by the clouds of 
vultures, came up almost as sickeningly as the feast of blood the day 
before. J 

Swarms of refugees laden with their treasures could be plainly marked 
passing out of the entrenchments westward and northward. The cannon 
which had wrought such destruction on the charging regulars could now 
be marked clearly, and the soldiers of the republic looked back wistfully 
to count the brazen tongues that had tardily reached the field on our 
side. But it is to be noted, and the fact is no discredit to the valor of our 
men, that by common consent the very ranks that had been yearning for 

(335) 



336 A TALE OF TWO CAPTAINS. 

action — glory or the grave — admitted that it would be murder to con- 
tinue the battle of the two previous days, if the Spaniards held out and 
defended the formidable lines now clearly visible to every eye. Again, 
the depressing disadvantage of our black smoke powder, revealing the 
exact position of the men and the almost preternatural work of the 
smokeless powder, revealing nothing, had its effect on the imaginations of 
those who had already felt the immense disparity of the two mediums. 
Up to this point the soldiers felt that they had themselves taken the reins 
in their own hands, that they had done the fighting and whatever faults 
Dr mischances had resulted was largely of their own doing. It was their 
own eagerness to seize the embattled lines in front, that deprived them of 
incalculable advantages of the Gatling guns painfully clambering toward 
them from the rear. A battery of these destructive machines at El Caney 
or San Juan would have saved half of the 1,500 lives lost in the adven- 
ture. In fact, by common consent, the capture of San Juan hill was as- 
cribed to the extraordinary inspirations of two captains of the Sixth 
United States Infantry, and in days to come when the daring of the 
march and siege are discussed, the tale will take its place among the 
thrilling legends of military history. The Sixth lost 131 men killed and 
wounded, out of a total of 450 who came through the via dolorosa of El 
Pozo under the command of its colonel, Egbert. These 450 men launched 
in the dark, vaguely directed to cross the San Juan river and hold the 
foot of the hill, found themselves as it were, isolated, that is to say, out of 
the reach of the staff guides and division commander. 

The hill uprose bristling with cactus and impregnable with the thickly 
set wires and traps prearranged for death. Up in the air, far above the 
Sixth, rose the ancient crenelated ruin turned into a fortress or block- 
house. The ascent from any side accessible to the regiment was by 
actual measurement forty five degrees. The segment of the hill to be 
taken and held, about a third of a mile crescent. The river oozes furtively 
through an immense brake of jungle, wire, grass and all manner of cling- 
ing and obstructive growths. The water at no point fell below the 
middle of the men as they struggled through. Into this pit of gloom the 
Spaniards had prearranged a fire which was so well nourished, as the 
French would say, that hardly a leaf was spared on the taller growths, 
and it seems like an invention to say that a man of the 450 escaped from 
the downpour of Mausers. It is no discredit to the battalion that they 
broke in every direction, not to seek cover but to avoid death in order 
that they might achieve the task set them. In this dispersion, the various 
companies were so dislocated that the men could not find their surround- 



THROUGH A PIT OF DEATH. 337 

ings nor the officers their commands. In this blizzard of mingled death 
and confusion, Captain L. W. V. Kennan of Company E, and Captain 
Charles Byrne of Company F, asked the colonel, in despair, what they 
should do. The previous consign had been not to push beyond the river 
until the proper supports came up on either flank, but to remain in the 
pit of death was to sacrifice the regiment uselessly, whereas by advancing, 
the range of the Spaniards might be disconcerted. The two captains just 
mentioned gathered together fragments of many companies as they came 
to hand. With this dauntless band, Byrne made at the wire palisades, 
where the men were already mowed down in heaps. He seized a machete 
from the hand of a Cuban, slashed an opening in the wire and, amazing to 
say, almost in single file the band poured through and as anticipated 
were fur a momentous pause sheltered from the plunging fire above. But 
a harder task still fronted them, for the uprise was so steep that the men 
were obliged to pull themselves up by the bushes. And it often happened 
that the shoulder of one man was the stepping-stone to another to retain 
his footway. But there was a surcease from the Mausers, for the bullets 
went far beyond the squirming companies as they painfully toiled up- 
ward. At the top of the hill Byrne and Kennan gravely shook hands in 
commemoration of the feat done, and the work to do. On this gloriously 
won point of vantage they found the brilliant and brave Lieutenant Ord, 
who had paid for his temerity in seeking the spot, by his life. With 
straggling fragments of the Sixteenth and Twenty-fourth he had, al- 
though a staff officer, taken it upon him to silence the fort that was deal- 
ing such destruction, and in the charge he was riddled by the bullets of a 
revolver in the hands of a wounded Spaniard. 

This one of the painful tragedies of the line of battle, in the deadly 
climax of onset, illustrates the "hell " aspect of war. One of the aids of 
General Hawkins — Lieutenant Ord — had distinguished himself by a bear- 
ing and energy worthy of his lineage, for the young man was a son of 
that splendid soldier General O. E. C. Ord, whose service during the Civil 
War gave him rank and influence with the most admired of the group just 
below Grant, Sherman and McClellan. Young Ord had proved the fine 
fabric of his lineage, by entering the army as a private soldier. He had 
won the rank of lieutenant through the test of fitness. He had under- 
gone the trials and dangers of the combats at Santiago, with such firm- 
ness, with such an insight into the devoir of an officer, that his name 
was telegraphed to Washington as one among the signally deserving. He 
was everywhere on the deadly line guiding the broken ranks, informing 
the officers of their positions and the work incumbent upon them. He 



338 A HIDEOUS REVENGE. 

was hailed as the " gunner " by the ranks, for wherever his handsome 
young figure appeared, there was danger, but there was intelligent 
purpose. 

He was carrying out his task at the head of the charging columns at 
San Juan ; he had reached the summit of the hill, and saw the Spaniards 
breaking just beyond. At the instant, observing a wounded enemy with 
a gun in his hand, the lieutenant called out: "Take care of that man/' 
The Spaniard, as is supposed, mistook the intent of the officer's injunc- 
tion — supposed that he was directing his troops to kill instead of care for 
the helpless, and fired point blank at the victim. Ord fell dead. The 
soldiers of his regiment, — the Sixth Infantry — inflamed by the sight of the 
young man's slaughter, rushed on the assassin in a fury, riddled him with 
bullets, even tore the body into fragments and thrust those into the 
sticky soil. The vengeance no doubt seemed natural— at such a time ; 
Ord was passionately admired by his company, his death seemed an as- 
sassination, but it was not. The soldier with gun in hand is chartered 
by the laws of war to kill all who come within range. The wounded 
Spaniard, misled by the fabrications of the Cuban presses, took it for 
granted that death awaited him and he only imitated the most devoted 
figures in all wars, by selling his life dearly and lessening the enemies of 
his country. 

But even the most vigorous application of duty could not justify a 
company in avenging the lieutenant's death. The Spaniard was helpless 
— he was almost in the company's keeping, a prisoner. Now had this 
episode happened to a Spanish officer, and had the United States soldier 
who killed him, fared as the Spaniard fared, what would the world have 
heard? It would have been another evidence of the inborn depraved 
ferocity of the Spanish character. It would have justified any and all 
reprisals. The incident is of moment, only as admonishing the impulsive 
that in war, wrongdoing is the rule, rightdoing the mere chance of for- 
tunate circumstances. 

Byrne and Kennan, without a pause, concentrated the fragments of the 
companies that had clambered up the hill, and by what seemed a miracle 
of pure impudence charged upon the blockhouse, routed its defenders 
and ran up the flag. 

But the deeds of the day were scattered over so many points unwit- 
nessed by staff officers and the agencies usually accounted on to make 
reports, that these extraordinary exhibitions of individual courage and 
sagacity found no mention in the official reports. Yet this passage was to 
the general battle, what Hobsou's feat was to the destruction of Cervera. 



ONLY TWENTY LEFT. 339 

A witness of the adventure relates that the two captains moved entirely 
on their own responsibility, and that during the upward climb they be. 
came separated and as if by a mutual instinct on reaching the ores* 
ordered the same maneuvers. Captain Kennan made his men lie down 
and ordered them not to shoot at anything but men, and not to fire with, 
out orders. The men watched him eagerly, anticipating the word to ad 
vance. Very soon he ordered them forward. "The men's faces," Cap- 
tain Kennan testifies, "were like the faces of schoolboys when they heard 
that they are to have an unexpected holiday." They rushed on eagerlv, 
and found a road which fortunately saved them from a good deal of 
slaughter which other companies met in crossing a barbed wire fence 
that borders the meadows here. They lined up at one point with some 
of the men of the Sixteenth Infantry, but left them again; they passed 
on up the hill— not directly at the blockhouse, but in a flanking direc- 
tion, which gave them an easier ascent and then turned at right angles to 
face the blockhouse. All the way up Captain Kennan led and encour- 
aged his men ; but not one of them anywhere showed any disposition to 
waver. When the turn was made, Captain Kennan found himself and 
his company alone on the hill; he had supposed that the whole regiment 
was coming up. He hesitated a moment, wondering if he must retrace 
his steps. For one company, reduced more than one-half by the scatter- 
ing in the woods and the falling of men before the Spanish fire, to take 
the fortification alone, would be impossible. The captain sent his junior 
officer down the hill with this message : « The hill is ours if you'll come 
up ; for God's sake come." Meanwhile, he saw other men ascending, and 
pressed on. At the same time, the Gatling battery, under Captain Par- 
ker of the Thirteenth Infantry, poured a galling fire from below straight 
across the edge of the Spanish trenches into the defenders' faces. Ken- 
nan saw the Spanish leaving their blockhouse and getting into the 
trenches, which was a sign of panic. On he went with his men ; and 
now he saw the Spanish, who by this time were menaced with the ad- 
vance of other companies up the hill, abandoning the trenches and flying 
down the back side of the hill toward Santiago. In another moment he 
and his men, now reduced to about twenty, were leaping over the 
trenches, which they found full of dead and wounded. 

Battle itself would have been almost preferable to the hardships of the 
miserably inadequate ground where the army lay sprawled, it cannot be 
called encamped, during the trying hours of General Toral's pourparlers 
with Madrid. The hill was too steep and cut up, to admit of even pitch- 
ing of shelter tents, and beyond this, not even an officer was provided. 



340 MUD-STAINED INDESCRIBABLES. 

But the grave-like ditches were enlarged, and by dint of branches and 
all sorts of inventions which come readily to the Yankee under stress, made 
hats of more or less capacity. These spread all over the sanguinary 
plateau, which to some extent sheltered the bodies or part of the bodies 
from the inconceivably thick downpour of water which seemed to come 
regularly every afternoon in these leafy uplands. But the walking, since 
walking was now possible, with the white flag flying, became a burden 
for the mud was sticky as glue and left a murky spot wherever it touched 
the flesh or the garments. All ranks and conditions were " painted red " 
as the men humorously described it, for all were obliged alike to crawl 
into the mud holes for shelter. Not a man in the entire mass had a 
whole garment on his back or body. Few had shoes that were not out- 
worn and in most cases tied on by cords. From the highest officer down, 
there was scarcely a man in the grim ranks holding Santiago in leash 
that did not resemble the worst form of "tramp " that wanders about the 
northern cities. All the baggage was left at Baiquiri and carried back to 
Tampa in the empty transports. Had any of the millions admiring the 
bravery reported from day to day seen with the eye of the flesh the men 
who achieved it, it would have been difficult to make them believe that 
these mud-stained indescribables were the architects of an unparalleled 
victory. 

It is impossible to exaggerate the density of the uncanny growths that 
fairly pinioned the writhing masses attempting to push through, even in 
single file, man behind man. In the tangled wildernesses in which our 
armies were engaged during the Civil War, the lusty growth of briars 
was thought a torment almost beyond endurance, but in the Santiago 
impenetralia, the rank arms of a dozen different thorn bushes, from cac- 
tus to briars, clustered in vast reaches, thickly set as the most carefully 
trained hedge. The lances, prickles, were in most cases over an inch 
long, piercing as needles and tough as steel ; the leaves of the cacti were 
sharp as knives and of a consistency that defied blade and bayonet to 
break or wrest them from the stem. Never were such instruments of 
torture invented, for the edge of the leaf was practically a saw-like ob- 
stacle, with millions of spurs and vicious teeth. The tortured ranks 
could neither cut them down, burn them nor crawl under them ; they were 
forced to wedge through them, tearing their clothing to shreds and 
lacerating every inch of the body exposed to the venomous points. 

The Cubans indeed had established themselves along the route, as if 
life had finally reached the stage that realized their highest expectations. 
Picnic pavilions, not uningeniously constructed of palms, jutted out from 



OUR CUBAN ALLIES. 3 41 

the edge of the roadside, making miles of what under less acute sensa- 
tions might have easily been transformed into vernal villages of Arcady 
But though apparent ease to these nomads, the existence could not be 
called peace, with all the signs and tokens of war straggling past in the 
shape of the maimed, the wounded and the implements of war. To those 
who had time to observe the destitution of the natives, the task at hand 
for the new masters of Cuba when the campaign had ceased, came vividly 
to mind. As night fell, the male portion of these refugees assembled in 
surly counsel to bemoan the fate they had brought on themselves. For 
there was no concealment made of the fact that they had begun to con- 
ceive a more violent hatred of the masterful invaders than they had ever 
borne toward the easy-going, if cruel Spaniards. Words fail to describe 
their emotions when the more adventurous from the front, retailed the 
hideous heartlessness of " los Americanos" in denying the "patriot" 
bands their inherent privilege of entering the towns taken in fight, loot- 
ing the stores and perpetrating the death ceremony on such recalcitrant 
.Spaniards, as persisted in living after the sword and gun had done their 
work. At first when the army landed, these dark-browed conspirators 
had received the most humble soldier in the ranks, with a servility that 
soon became nauseating. They could not lift their ragged hats too high, 
nor bend their supple bodies too low when welcoming their rescuers 
I he tide had now turned. Their rescuers were beasts come to burden 
their beloved Cuba with a new tyranny. For it seemed from the plaints 
that could be gathered by those comprehending the jargon of the -patri- 
ots that law and order were the most odious signals of tyranny to men 
who had for years lived by rapine and slaughter. 

The observant newspaper correspondents found no end of amusement 
in studying the promiscuous herding of these disenchanted natives with 
the hardly less ferocious "land crabs," and these animals under other cir- 
cumstances would deserve a chapter to themselves. A lurid red in color 
with black trimmings— so to speak, the crab swarms and rattles through 
the palm villas of the herding Cubans, as ants might in a more civilized 
community. This crab ranges in size from a soup plate to a "plug " hat 
and what is more grewsomely grotesque about it, a casual glance reveals a 
hideous resemblance to the human countenance, as sketched by careless 
artists in making charcoal studies for pictures. No matter how crowded the 
roadway, no matter how thick the battalions pressing onward to the fight 
or the litters carrying off the wounded, these loathly crawling things skirm- 
ished and scattered under the very horses' hoofs, seeking the offal of the 
camp when helplessness no longer gave the human bodies to the maws of 



THE GROTESQUE CRAB. 

these hideous things, for. forage. Their locomotion was a constant sur- 
prise to the astonished invaders. They could go forward, backward, up- 
side down, or down side up, any and every conceivable way, where a 
natural object offered itself for their tentacular clutch. The small Cuban 
children could be seen at times playing with them as with cart-wheels, the 
crab revolving, very much as the old-fashioned iourth-of-July fire piece 
called " spin-wheel." No interior, no matter how well constructed by the 
soldiery, resisted them. They were in tents, under the straw or leaves, 
in the hospital wards, in the wagons in short, wherever the sight or smell 
of flesh or food attracted them. It was no unusual thing fur the worn 
soldier to be startled in his sleep by a clammy vulpine clasp on his face, 
and on waking find these pestiferous marauders crawling over and about 
him. They inflict on the flesh a very painful bite, which if not attended 
to, degenerates into a poisonous wound. 

Some of the adventurous and half-famished soldiery attempted to re- 
taliate upon the " varmints " by potting them. But whether through lack 
of skill in cooking or lack of the proper ingredients, these vicious monsters 
fattened upon the flesh of the dead, were found unavailable, to the no 
small satisfaction of the hospital people, who regarded the attempt to 
cook them as almost canibalistic. 

For two or three days after the army's advance began stalwart Cubans 
almost naked as to garments, without arms or any evidences of soldier- 
ship, flocked to the ranks demanding accoutrements and the wherewithal 
to fight. 

But it was very soon found that their fighting meant pillage, and that 
they had no sort of notion of the discipline exacted in the conduct of 
large bodies of men. They were incredibly /ever however, in penetrat- 
ing the jungles of cactus and thorn, and sug^vod to the staff some ideas 
as to the proper way of traversing Cuba, snould our conquest of the 
island involve a campaign against the very people we set out to rescue. 
For instead of using the ground as our thousands were compelled, to 
sleep on, no matter how wretched, the Cuban had a hammock and a few 
simple appurtenances, whereby at the coming of night he was comfort- 
ably couched far from the crabs and out of danger of the malarial effluvia 
that oozes from the soil or exhales from the foliage. 

They became humorously expert too in picking up the refuse of the out- 
worn soldiery. For, as universally testified, the painful labor of road build- 
ing and the unforeseen hardships involved in the jungle march, compelled 
the strongest to disembarrass themselves of very nearly everything but 
gun and ammunition. All these disjecta membra, fell spoil to the far- 



THE STORY OF THE ANTS. 313 

seeing Cubans. Now and then a staff officer striking out through an 
opening came upon recesses where the accumulated accoutrements, 
blankets and what not, of the army made the leafy glades resemble a 
government storehouse. In many cases too when regiments were sent 
off suddenly upon a reconnoissance, piled their impedimenta, and at first 
neglected to place guards over them, the entire store was seized and se- 
creted by the Cubans. It not unfrequently happened too that small 
squads of men, worn out by the march, halted by the wayside, were at- 
tacked and pillaged by Cuban marauders. 

A British correspondent who had seen war in all the recent outbreaks 
in Europe, witnessed nothing so fierce for the time taken, or the sacrifices 
of life involved, than the advance on Santiago. He gives a few glimpses 
that the readers of military history will prize : 

" When afternoon came— I lost exact count of time— there was still a 
jumble of volleying over by Caney. But in front, our men were away 
out of sight behind a ridge far ahead. Beyond, there arose a long, steep- 
ish ascent crowned by the blockhouse upon which the artillery had 
opened fire in the morning. 

"Suddenly, as we looked through our glasses, we saw a little black ant 
go scrambling quickly up this hill, and an inch or two behind him a 
ragged line of other little ants, and then another line of ants at another 
part of the hill, and then another, until it seemed as if somebody had 
dug a stick into a great ants' nest down in the valley, and all the 
ants were scrambling away up hill. Then the volley firing began ten 
times more furiously than before; from the right beyond the top of the 
ridge burst upon the ants a terrific fire of shells; from the blockhouse in 
front of them machine guns sounded their continuous rattle. But the 
ants swept up the hill. They seemed to us to thin out as they went 
forward ; but they still went forward. It was incredible, but it was grand. 
The boys were storming the hill. The military authorities were most 
surprised. They were not surprised at these splendid athletic daredevils 
of ours doing it. But that a military commander should have allowed a 
fortified and intrenched position to be assailed by an infantry charge up 
the side of a long, exposed hill, swept by a terrible artillery fire, frightened 
them not so much by its audacity as by its terrible cost in human life. 

" As they neared the top the different lines came nearer together. One 
moment they went a little more slowly; then they nearly stopped; then 
they went on again faster than ever, and then all of us sitting there on 
the top of the battery cried with excitement. For the ants were scram- 
bling all round the blockhouse on the ridge, and in a moment or two we 



g44 SWARMING UP THE RIDGES. 

saw them inside it. But then our hearts swelled up into our throats, for 
a fearful fire came from somewhere beyond the blockhouse and from 
somewhere to the right of it and somewhere to the left of it. Then we» 
saw the ants come scrambling down the hill again. They had taken a 
position which they had not the force to hold. But a moment or two 
and up they scrambled again, more of them, and more quickly than before, 
and up the other face of the hill to the left went other lines, and the 
ridge was taken, and the blockhouse was ours, and the trenches were 
full of dead Spaniards. 

"It was a grand achievement — for the soldiers who shared it — this 
storming of the hill leading up from the St. Juan River to the ridge before 
the main fort. We could tell so much at 2,560 yards. But we also knew 
that it had cost them dear. 

" Later on, we knew only too well how heavy the cost was. As I was 
trying to make myself comfortable for the night in some meadow grass as 
wet with dew as if there had been a thunderstorm, I saw a man I knew 
in the Sixteenth, who had come back from the front on some errand. 

" ' How's the Sixteenth ? ' I asked him. 

"'Good, what's left of it,' he said; 'there's fifteen men left out of my 
company — fifteen out of a hundred.' 

" We have fought a great battle, but we have not taken Santiago yet." 

Indeed, without the guaranty of actual eyesight, the future student 
of war might suppose in the plain tale of Santiago he was reading an 
exaggeration of the memoirs of Napoleon's rough riders, Marbot or Nan- 
souty. 

" It was the day after the big fight, and the road was busy both ways. 
From the front, the heavy, jolting, six-mule ammunition wagons were 
returning empty after dropping their boxes of cartridges at the firing 
line. 

" But not quite empty, for as they came nearer you saw that awnings 
of big palm leaves were lightly spread from side to side. And then, 
when, with a ' Whee hooyah ! ' and a crack of the long whip and a ' Git in 
thar, durn yer,' from the Texan teamster, the mules swung round from 
the road up the steep bank into the hospital field, you saw as the wagon 
tilted that under the palm leaves pale, bandaged men were lying. They 
groaned in agony as the heavy springless wagons rocked and jolted. 

"'For God's sake kill me out of this,' screamed a man as he clutched 
in agony at the palm leaves between him and the sun. It seemed awful 
that wounded men should be carried back in such fashion, but then, as 
some one explained, 'Guess there's a considerable shortage of ambulance 




The First Flag of Tkuce from Santiago. 



HUMAN AMMUNITION. 847 

traction.' And then there was a certain grim appropriateness to the 
proceedings of yesterday. 

"The men had b-sen fired as ammunition against intrenchments and 
positions that shoi'id have been taken by artillery. It was quite in keep- 
ing that the pocr, battered, spent bullets should be carted back in the 
ammunition wagons. But besides the wagons there came along from the 
front, men borne on hand litters, some lying face downward, writhing at 
intervals in a .vful convulsions, others lying motionless on the flat of their 
backs with their hats placed over their faces for shade. And there also 
came men,, dozens of them afoot, painfully limping with one arm thrown 
over the shoulder of a comrade and the other arm helplessly dangling. 
"'How much further to the hospital?' they would despairingly ask. 
" « Only a quarter of a mile or so,' I would answer, and, with a smile of 
hope ftt the thought that after all they would be able to achieve the jour- 
ney, they would hobble along. 

"But the ammunition wagons and the few ambulance wagons did not 
carry them all. For hobbling down the steep bank from the hospital, 
cr,me bandaged men on foot. They sat down for awhile on the bank as 
far as they could from the jumble of mules and wagons in the lane, and then 
setting their faces toward Siboney they commenced to walk it, They 
were the men whose injuries were too slight for wagon room to be given 
them. There was not enough wagon accommodation for the men whose 
wounds rendered them helplessly prostrate. So let the men who had 
mere arm and shoulder wounds, simple flesh wounds, or only one injured 
leg or foot, walk it. Siboney was only eight miles away. 

" True, it was a fearfully bad road, but then the plain fact was that 
there was not enough wagons for all, and it was better for these men to be 
at the base hospital, and better that they should make room at the 
division hospital, even if they had to make the journey on foot. There 
was one man on the road whose left foot was heavily bandaged and 
drawn up from the ground. He had provided himself with a sort of 
rough crutch made of the forked limb of a tree, which he had padded 
with a bundle of clothes. With the assistance of this and a short stick 
he was padding briskly along when I overtook him. 
" ' Where did they get you ? ' I asked him. 

"'Oh, durn their skins,' he said in the cheerfulest way, turning to me 
with a smile, 'they got me twice— a splinter of a shell in the foot, and a 
bullet through the calf of the same leg, when I was being carried back 
from the firing line.' 
" ' A sharpshooter ? * 



348 HEROISM OF THE WOUNDED. 

" ' The fellow was up in a tree.' 

'"And you're walking back to Siboney. Wasn't there room for you 
to ride?' I expected an angry outburst of indignation in reply to this 
question. But I was mistaken. In a plain, matter-of-fact way he said : 

" ' Guess not. They wanted all the riding room for worse cases 'n 
mine. Thank God, my two wonnds are both in the same leg, so I can 
walk quite good and spry. They told me I'd be better off down at the 
landing yonder, so I got these crutches and made a break.' 

" ' And how are you getting along? ' I asked. 

" ' Good and well,' he said as cheerfully as might be, 'just good and easy.' 
And with his one sound leg and his two sticks he went cheerfully pad- 
ding along. 

"It was just the same with other walking, wounded men. They were 
all beautifully cheerful. And not merely cheerful. They were all abso- 
lutely unconscious that they were undergoing any unnecessary hardships 
or sufferings. They knew now that war was no picnic, and they were not 
complaining at the absence of picnic fare. Some of them had lain out all 
the night, with the dew falling on them where the bullets had dropped 
them, before their turn came with the overworked field surgeons. 

"'There was only sixty doctors with the outfit,' they explained, 'and, 
naturally, they couldn't tend everybody at once.' 

" That seemed to them a quite sufficient explanation. It did not occur 
to them that there ought to have been more doctors, more ambulances. 
Some of them seemed to have a faint glimmering of a notion that there 
might perhaps have been fewer wounded ; but then that was so obvious 
to everybody. The conditions subsequent to the battle they accepted as 
the conditions proper and natural to the circumstances. The cheerful fel- 
low with the improvised crutches was so filled with thankfulness at the 
possession of his tree-branch that it never occurred to him that he had 
reason to complain of the absence of proper crutches. I happened by 
chance to know that packed away in the hold of one of the transports 
lying out in Siboney Bay there were cases full of crutches, and I was on 
the point of blurting out an indignant statement of the fact when I re- 
membered that the knowledge would not make his walk easier. So I said 
nothing about it. 

" I had to make the journey to Siboney myself. There was nothing 
more than a desultory firing going on at the front, and I had telegrams to 
try and get away. So I passed a good many of the walking wounded, 
and heard a good many groans from palm awninged wagons. The men 
were, all the same, bravely and uncomplainingly plodding along through 



THE PRESIDENT'S ANXIETY. 349 

the mud. As they themselves put it, they were ' up against it,' and that 
was all about it. 

"And down at Siboney? Well, thank God, the hospital tents had 
been unloaded. They were short of cots, short of blankets, short of 
surgeons, short of supplies, short of nurses, short of everything. But, 
thank goodness, by squeezing and crowding and economizing space there 
was shelter for the men as they came in. And thank goodness, too, for 
the Red Cross Society." 

During the Civil War, when battle was raging along the long front of 
thousands of miles, President Lincoln haunted the homely quarters where 
the Secretary of War was housed in those days, like an uneasy spectre. 
Any hour of the day or night when it was known that the armies were 
engaged, the President could be seen in pathetic expectancy, waiting the 
word from the battling hosts. Many a soldier who had borne unshaken 
the deadliest charges, where carnage had claimed its thousands, was 
moved to tears by the sight of the awful solicitude of the chief magistrate 
in the crises of the campaign. President Mclvinley knew from personal 
experience what Abraham Lincoln underwent during those memorable 
days. McKinley passed some hours of the same sort during the heat and 
fury of the Santiago campaign. Meagre reports of the varying phases of 
the combats at El Caney, San Juan and Aguadores reached the White 
House during the trying hours of July 3d and 4th. But there were more 
elaborate preparations and appliances for keeping instantaneously au 
courant with the developments of the battlefield in Washington during 
this war, than there were during the troubled incumbency of Lincoln. 
The " war room " of the executive mansion served as an assembly for all 
the counsellors of the executive. The walls were lined with charts and 
the insignia of the game of war. Maps,revealing down to the minutest 
detail the points of attack and strategic positions were spread out to en- 
able the civic Commander-in-Chief to comprehend the marches and move- 
ments of the armies and fleets. From hour to hour the vague echoes of 
what was going on along the lines at Santiago came with exasperating 
incoherence. 

The President grew grave and graver as the tale went on. For with 
the unparalleled records of valor, at the crucial points of the battle line 
came straggling accounts of the cost of the glory won on the Santiago 
hills. Before anything definite as to the result achieved had come to 
hand, it was known that more than a thousand lives had been lost. It 
was not known that these had been the price of El Caney, San Juan, — all 
the most serious outworks of the Spanish defence. The worn look on Mc- 



350 THE TERRIBLE HEAT. 

Kinley's face grew deeper and deeper. If it had cost so much to merely 
storm the advance works, what would be the penalty of the main line of 
battlements? If there were 10,000 men in line and 1,000 had been 
wounded or killed, how could Shafter be expected to continue? The 
very fear that began to haunt the mind of the President soon flashed 
across the wires like an ill-boding echo. Shafter in the despondency of 
his losses, confronted by an aggravation of the difficulties of transporta- 
tion, broke down. He saw nothing but retreat before him. His utmost 
effort had been put forth and the enemy gave no sign of yielding. He 
had no reserves within reach, indeed, it would have done little good if he 
had, as the roads encumbered with the long train of wounded would have 
been impracticable for an advance. The flowers of the army had been 
withered in the hot fire of the two days' combat. The glorious Regulars 
who knew how to die were no longer in force to teach the volunteers the 
conduct of the soldier. He didn't exactly know the forces of the Span- 
iards but he was certain that now he was besieging an army equal at least 
in numbers to his own. It was an hour of such bitterness to the Presi- 
dent and his dumbfounded strategists, as the despatches from Manila 
must have caused in the cabinet of the Spanish Queen Regent. The Presi- 
dent realized in an instant the fierce cry of wrath and scorn that would 
salute the event, if things were going to turn out as Shafter, in his dis- 
couragement, hinted. He would be held responsible to the world for the 
hurrying forward of incompetent forces ; for the crass ignorance of a 
movement that showed imprevoyance in every detail. Neither Bull Run 
nor Fredericksburg wrought more misery on Lincoln, than the few hours 
of doubt as to the outcome of Santiago revealed in the worn face of Mc- 
Kinley. 

The first days of July had been intolerably hot in Washington, the 
thermometer had gone as high as 106° in the shade. What then must the 
normal temperature have been on the sunburned hills of Santiago, in the 
stifling fumes of battle smoke, in the rush and hurry of charge and 
action? No wonder Shafter's heart fainted when he saw the sanguinary 
lines of wounded dragging themselves past his quarters. It looked as if 
the entire force were victims of the Mauser. But even more cruel than 
the wan cavalcade cf mangled, the hecatombs that covered the sun-blis- 
tered hillsides made it seem that the whole army was disabled. No won- 
der that Shafter, himself ailing, despaired of pushing forward, where to 
merely breathe seemed a hardship. For the 1,000 killed and the 1,000 
wounded were not the only visible results of the week's marches and com- 
bats. Many were inanimate or seemed so, from heat, the water and the 



AN ARMISTICE 851 

food. Shafter knew that if he could summon 5,000 able-bodied men out 
of the 16,000 thousand on the rolls he would be doing extremely well. 
In the war room in Washington, as in Shafter's tent at Santiago, this was 
all vividly realized so soon as the commander's hint of retreat came. The 
councillors of the executive probably realized it even more poignantly, for 
they had already heard something of the hideous lack of system and pre- 
vision governing the administrative details of the campaign. Fear like a 
robe of penitence fell upon every one in authority — for there was a dim 
introspective vision of the coming storm, when millions began to learn 
the story. 

But the hardest of the strain was the secret fear of all that Shafter had 
not ventured to tell the worst; that more agonizing was to follow! It 
was even whispered under the breath, that he was already flying in dis- 
order along the choked roads, stripped of every semblance of an organized 
force. To lend to the worst apprehensions, there were inexplicable 
breaks in the despatches; intervals of what seemed unnecessary delay 
when the President lost all hope. He was steeling himself for the 
catyclasm, when an almost grotesque word trickled over the wire. The 
armies had agreed on an armistice ! That meant time for reinforcements ; 
it meant that the wretched Spaniard had already half surrendered, for a 
man in his place would never consent to stop fighting an instant with 
such conditions confronting him, unless he was making ready to give up. 
This too the merest amateur in the besieging ranks realized, and from the 
moment the white flag fluttered out over the bloody spaces, the armies 
knew that whatever further fighting went on, would be perfunctory. The 
truce was all in favor of the invader and in no wise in favor of the be- 
sieged. But as the wretched Spaniard was compelled to take counsel 
with Madrid, and as the Sagasta cabinet had been warned that the forces 
could not resist a siege, the truce was meant from the first as a pre- 
liminary to the end. This, however, General Shafter didn't know. He 
was now to some extent relieved of the burden by the arrival of the Gen- 
eral-in-Chief, Miles, who set to work to push reinforcements to the sorely 
worn ranks. The pourparlers went on from the temporary truce until 
the 15th. General Toral the Spanish commander who had succeeded 
General Linares, was in feverish correspondence with the authorities in 
Madrid, who for some reason not explained, delayed a definitive answer 
to the soldiers' prayer to be permitted to give up the useless contest. Even 
when General Shafter felt himself strong enough to take the city by a 
coup de main, the wiser method of persuasion went on. 

It is worth setting down that the irrepressible soldiery, so far as their 



852 THE HOUR OF TRIUMPH. 

wishes were expressed, desired carnage. They wanted to go into the 
city in the tumult of battle. These too were the men who had gone 
through the Walpurgis torments of those early July days, when the air 
burned the lungs that inhaled it. But at noon on the 15th of July the 
tedious preliminaries were brought to an end. The chiefs of the Federal 
army, in the presence of, the two lines, Spanish and Yankee,met a short 
distance from the intrenchments, and the last solemnity was observed. 
Followed by a regiment of the Regulars, Shafter and his staff were con- 
ducted to the civic palace where the flag of the United States replaced the 
banner of Spain. There was little attempt at the spectacular, but the 
masses who witnessed the scene were impressed with the indifference of 
the Spaniards. For both the citizens and soldiers seemed relieved. The 
capitulation revealed to General Shafter the amazing luck that had at- 
tended our whole campaign, for the forces surrendered were almost 
double the number brought to the island from Tampa. Those who had 
wrought incessantly for weeks were rewarded with a spectacle such as we 
had not seen since the armies of Washington and Rochambeau were 
drawn up at Yorktown — the filing past of an army corps, under the laws 
of war. Our soldiery, in this intoxicating hour of triumph, confirmed all 
the traditions of chivalry we have been accustomed to associate with them ; 
they gave the Spaniards no cause to regret the giving up. Shafter him- 
self like the stout soldier he had proven himself, refused to take the 
sword of the Spanish commander. In an hour after the flag of the re- 
public swung out over the turrets of the municipal palace the troops of 
the two armies were mobilized in the kindliest confraternity. The good 
augury was still later fulfilled by a document which forms a point of de- 
parture in warfare. On leaving the country for Spain,the armies captured 
at Santiago issued this remarkable testimony to the cordiality of the re- 
lations established in the stress of war. 

"To Major-General Shafter, Commanding the American Army in 
Cuba: 

"Sir: The Spanish soldiers who capitulated in this place on the 16th 
of July last, recognizing your high and just position, pray that through 
you all the courageous and noble soldiers under your command may 
receive our good wishes and farewell, which we send them an embarking 
for our beloved Spain. For this favor, which we have no doubt you will 
grant, you will gain the everlasting gratitude and consideration of 11,000 
Spanish soldiers, who are your most humble servants. 

"Pedro Lopez de Castillo, 

"Private of Infantry." 



354 ALL HAPPINESS AND HEALTH. 

" Also the following letter, addressed to the soldiers of the American 
Army : 

" Soldiers of the American Army : We would not be fulfilling our duty 
as well-born men, in whose breasts there live gratitude and courtesy, 
should we embark for our beloved Spain without sending to you our most 
cordial and sincere good wishes and farewell. We fought you with ardor, 
with all our strength, endeavoring to gain the victory, but without the 
slightest rancor or hate toward the American nation. We have been 
vanquished by you (so our Generals and chiefs judged in signing the 
capitulation), but our surrender and the bloody battles preceding it have 
left in our souls no place for resentment against the men who fought us 
nobly and valiantly. You fought and acted in compliance with the same 
call of duty as we, for we all but represent the power of our respective states. 

" You fought us as men, face to face, with great courage, as before 
stated, a quality which we had not met with during the three years we 
have carried on this war against a people without religion, without morals, 
without conscience, and of doubtful origin, who could not confront the 
enemy, but, hidden, shot their noble victims from ambush and then im- 
mediately fled. This was the kind of warfare we had to sustain in this 
unfortunate land. You have complied exactly with all the laws and 
usages of war, as recognized by the armies of the most civilized nations of 
the world; have given honorable burial to the dead of the vanquished ; 
have cured their wounded with great humanity ; have respected and cared 
for your prisoners and their comfort, and lastly, to us, whose condition 
was terrible, you have given freely of food, of your stock of medicines, 
and you have honored us with distinction and courtesy, for after the 
fighting the two armies mingled with the utmost harmony. 

" With this high sentiment of appreciation from us all, there remains 
but to express our farewell, and with the greatest sincerity we wish you 
all happiness and health in this land, which will no longer belong to our 
dear Spain, but will be yours who have conquered it by force and watered 
it with your blood, as your conscience called for, under the demand of 
civilization and humanity, but the descendants of the Congo and of 
Guinea, mingled with the blood of unscrupulous Spaniards and of traitors 
and adventurers — these people are not able so exercise or enjoy their 
liberty, for they will find it a burden to comply with the laws which 
govern civilized communities. From 11,000 Spanish soldiers. 

"Pedro Lopez de Castillo, 

"Soldier of Infantry." 

"Santiago de Cuba 21st of August, 1898. 
" Shaftee, Major-General." 



THE ROMANCE OF SANTIAGO. 355 

It was Cervera's fleet not Santiago that decided the siege of that city. 
With the ungovernable curiosity of our compatriots for information, all 
the accessible data bearing on this most ancient and picturesque of Cuban 
capitals was brought into requisition. History, however, has curiously 
leglected to set forth the innumerable layers of romance that bury San- 
tiago in a vaguely unreal oblivion. Alternately the city of Spanish 
power, the headquarters of its viceroys and the seat of rebellion, Santiago 
has for a new world city as much interest to the archeaologist as Cadiz or 
Seville. All the conquistadores from Columbus to Hernando de Soto 
paused in their conquering flight in this sacred city named after the 
patron saint of Spain, Saint Iago. Here Ponce de Leon loitered, dreaming 
his dreams of that mysterious spring that, once tasted, was to restore 
youth to the jaded and beauty to the outworn. The city itself is an 
irregular square rising steeply from the edge of the pellucid water of one 
of the most enchanting bays of the world, and sprawling distractedly 
upward to those heights which will for many a day be memorable in the 
annals of this republic. 

To the traveler who has seen Spain, the city is a fair reproduction of 
any separate segment of Toledo. The houses like all tropic edifices, are 
built for the double purpose of shading the streets and lessening the 
danger in the event of earthquakes. The walls of the ancient edifices are 
fortress-like in strength and not without the picturesque suggestion that 
still makes a Spanish city an object of interest, even delight to eyes that 
have grown weary of our monotonous brown stone grandeurs, or the de- 
pressing "flat ,; structures that have come to make our cities models of 
hideousness. It is not, however, so much the city as the people which 
makes Santiago a study to neighbors even so near as ourselves. For, 
though within a few hours' sail of the most capacious ports of the United 
States, Santiago is far less known than Bordeaux or Hamburg. The San- 
tiagoans live very much as their forefathers three hundred years ago must 
have lived, under the hard mediaeval conditions, when the populace had 
little voice, few representatives and no consideration. The monteros for 
example, working people, are housed in huts that would incite a riot 
among the most downtrodden of the Africans of the South. The floors 
are without plank and the walls rough finished mortar just as it is laid 
on. The roof is generally broad palmetto leaves and sloped down to 
within a foot or two of the ground. In this scanty " castle " huddles 
usually a very large family, for the Cubano is a prolific begetter. Cloth- 
ing is hardly an expense in the calculation of these monteros families, for 
the children run about quite as they were born — naked. In the upper 



356 INDOLENCE AND IGNORANCE. 

strata of this civic system, while dwellings are marked by taste and even 
elegance of refinement, the male Cuban has of late years at least, fallen 
into the British habit of club life. The Don Carlos club of Santiago is 
the rendezvous of all who are admitted to any degree of social distinction 
in the city. The single thing to note in this aristocratic cenacle, is the 
utter absence of any literature of any kind in the clubrooms. But it has 
long been a singular distinction of the Cubans that they are the most 
illiterate of any well-to-do race in Christendom. For, like the ancient 
aristocrats of the feudal days, education still bears the stamp of low birth 
or equivocal status. Ignorance, however, is rather the result of indolence 
than a pronounced prejudice against learning. And in a system in which 
personal initiative found little encouragement, no attempts have ever 
been made in any of the Cuban cities to put schools to the front as even 
the most obstinate absolutisms in Europe have found it necessary to do. 
The chief distinction of the city of Santiago is, that the seat of the Catho- 
lic Church is situated there. The archbishop's palace rivals the splendor 
of the ancient castle of the viceroys. The union of church and state in 
in its militant form, is significantly illustrated in the great cathedral, where 
an armed warrior stands in effigy beside the high altar, accoutred as 
though on the field of battle, a memorial of the warlike San Iago. In 
everything that pertains to life as our busy people understand it, Santiago 
carries us back three hundred years, and we see the people as the eyes of 
Cortez or Columbus must have seen them, when they quit the banks of 
the Guadalquiver to gather the argosies which were to bring Spain the 
treasure, that were to ultimately work her ruin. 

Santiago did not have the good fortune to be burned down under a 
vigorous administrator like Tacon, who rebuilt Havana. Hence its nar- 
row, filthy streets, its ancient but not venerable walls, suggest the senti 
ment of Watts reversed in its aspect: where nothing pleases and man is 
vile. For certainly it seems impossible, for anything with refinement, or 
our idea of order, to subsist in streets that are merely sewers, perpetually 
confronted by sights repellent and disgusting. And yet, accustomed to 
the place, every one who has resided in its filthy shambles, confesses to a 
certain fascination. For, with all their alleged cruelty there is a certain 
childlike and confiding side to the Spanish Cuban, almost irresistible to 
our cold-blooded and rather calculating race. Possibly the lavish splen- 
dor of the foliage of the palms, whose leaves are large as umbrellas, and 
the indescribable blossoms that break out in the interstices of old walls, 
wherever a particle of soil may have lodged, serve to hide the ugliness of 
outline and even to cover the decay which resembles filth. Under the 



THE SANTIAGOANS. 



357 



benignant moonlight the life of the town has all the fascination of Seville 
or Cadiz. The streets are animated with languorous cavaliers and seno- 
ritas, just as we have seen them in pictures and heard them sung since 
Don Quixote jibed chivalry away. There is but one public square and 
this is the centre of the pleasure system, for here all ranks and conditions 
of the Santiagoans meet of an evening, as do the Venetians in the Piazza St. 
Marco. Fronting this plaza, rises the ungainly facade of the cathedral, a 
mingling of Moorish and Gallo-Roman architecture, imposing only by its 
dimensions. For its 38,000 people, Santiago has fifty churches and six 
casinos. The latter are renowned for their elaborate fittings and for the 
constant gaiety going on within their walls. 




PALACE OE THE GOVEKNOIl-GENERAL, SANTIAGO. 



V. 

IF this narrative proves anything, it places beyond dispute the valor of 
our soldiery, by sea and land. The mere recital of the prodigies 
wrought by navy and army attest the unexampled loftiness of soul, the 
devouring ardor of rank and file to do all that falls to man to do in 
danger. Barely however, had the truce sounded and peace begun, when 
a dolorous transformation set a new scene. The death and maiming 
which were spared us in battle set in with astounding swiftness, the 
moment the deliberate operations of withdrawal began. An outbreak of 
indignant protest soon filled the land, obscuring for the time the momen- 
tous issues to be decided by the peace commissions ; letters from thousands 
of soldiers in camp revealed a state of destitution, of neglect, so incredible 
that it required verified testimony on the part of those believed most 
trustworthy, to convince the country. Such examinations as followed, 
revealed a repulsive reign of unfitness and incapacity not found at the 
front alone, in the fever smitten chapparal camps of Cuba. The rendez- 
vous from Chickamauga to Washington were found to be all that camps 
should not be. It was found that our sons and brothers, our husbands and 
fathers, eager, high-minded, noble, were made the spoil of low-minded in- 
triguers, coralled like cattle under untrained chiefs, shipped to the scene 
of action by dunces and adventurers, who knew no more of war than the 
cowboy or the fillibuster. 

From the moment war was proclaimed until the hour peace came, it 
was the nefarious influence of the politician, the hateful greed of syndi- 
cates, that seemed to rule the war office. The lust of gain, the privilege 
of place, the odious mechanism of what is vulgarly known as the "pull " 
of the accidental holders of place, ruled the precincts of valor, of author- 
ity. Shylock expounded the law and demanded the flesh and blood of 
our heroes, our defenders. The administrative agencies seem to have 
been dominated by a hierarchy of pitiless speculators demanding, not the 
pound of flesh the poet makes typical, but the lifeblood of the soldiery, 
the savings of the millions. The signal was given by the unqualifiable Con- 
gress that forced the war. That body passed a revenue law, which ex- 
acted the last penny from toil, and left substantially untouched the 
affluent and influential. From the household salt to the miner's kit, the 

(358) 



THE WAR DEPARTMENT ARRAIGNED. 859 

tax fell, heavily inescapable, while the lordly yachtsman, the baron of the 
mines, or the bond manipulator escaped untouched. The small army 
called for to fight the spectre of a power that never meant to resent our 
conduct beyond the form of protest, was launched with a machinery, on 
paper, as costly as the vast force that put down the rebellion. Every 
time server who knew the methods of the departments, every knave who 
knew the complaisance of Congressmen, every self-seeker who aspired to 
sudden wealth, rallied at the war department, at the various executive 
counters of commerce, and exacted tribute from the administrative 
agents. From a shoe string to a cavalry bridle, from a can of beans to a 
vial of quinine, the war department accepted bids, higher by wholesale 
than any reputable merchant ever dreamed of asking at retail. The 
peculation in the naval purchases were open to all eyes, the people were 
made to pay for useless hulks, tenfold, — a hundredfold the valuation 
set by competent appraisers. 

But miscreant as this assassin traffic was, it would have passed un- 
heeded, had the soldiers been spared the dolorous consequences. When 
the agonizing cries of the wounded, the maledictions of parents and 
friends uprose over the scoundrelly transports furnished, then the public, 
always languid over abuses, indifferent over the criminal malfeasances of 
legislators, broke into protest. The inhuman greed of the favored Shy- 
locks cost the republic more lives than the Spanish fleets and bullets. 
The scenes on the transports dispatched from Santiago eclipse in bar- 
barous inhumanity the torments of the Turk in Armenia, the British 
prisons of the revolution of 1812. While we were pouring out treasure 
with unstinted measure, the sick, the wounded, the dying, were without 
the essentials to existence. At this moment when the horrors of war, 
through science, were reduced to the lowest terms, we, in a " War for hu- 
manity " murdered our wounded, starved our convalescents, and conveyed 
the heroes of glorious fields in ships that a humane cattle herder would 
refuse to embark his herds on. We have seen the criminal neglect of the 
commissary — the medical department, all the secondary forces of cam- 
paigning, during the awful advance and siege of Santiago : we have seen 
an army pushed against scientifically prepared bulwarks, unprovided with 
a single requisite for the campaign involved. We have seen a handful of 
surgeons, fainting in the attempt to do the work apportioned for hun- 
dreds; we have seen men fighting three days without cover, without 
food, without intelligible control. All this, however, may be explicable 
through causes involving no criminality. But the lack of medical aid, 
the utter absence of the hospital resources, paid for, and well paid for, 



360 THE MEN WITH A "PULL." 

by the people, mean that knavery, rather than imbecility was the cause. 
Whether rightly or wrongly, the head of the war department was uni. 
versally held responsible fur the misconduct of the entire administrative 
forces. Put in place, by repulsive and abhorrent forces, Alger was 
looked upon by many as the last expression of the type of official, the 
weak, the wicked, the hatefully incompetent faction of party foisted upon 
the tax payers. He had been for years an absurdly pushing candidate 
for the presidency. 

For the supply of the soldiers, the chartering of trains, the use of rail- 
ways, the thousand and one contracts, depending on, if not originated by 
the head of the war department, were from common report what the 
plain people call theft. That is to say a sagacious executive, an educated 
administrator would have made it a matter of personal pride, to say 
nothing of patriotism, to secure to the people the lowest rates and the 
most efficient services. There was not a regiment moved from any point 
to any other point in the country, that an outcry of indignant contempt 
was not heard. Even Theodore Roosevelt, bound by official amenities, to 
speak moderately, characterized the transportation of his Rough Riders, 
as a libel on civilized mobilization. Nor is it possible without some expe- 
rience in the actual business of war, to wholly comprehend the nefarious, 
inhuman treatment of the men entrusted to the despicable agencies signal- 
ized in Cuba. To enrich contractors, they were improperly clad; to en- 
rich contractors, they were improperly fed, or as at Santiago, not fed at all. 
At every rendezvous, the tale was told of inferior food, flimsy and half 
made garments, winter coats under a torrid sun — in fact plundering of 
the treasury without restraint. The sons of senators, the progeny of the 
group that command a " pull," were assigned to the scientific functions 
that require education, training, experience. Their names were flaunted 
daily in the press despatches, where glory was to be gained. 

But the schooled legions that had been graduated from West Point, 
during the last thirty -five years, eager, able, competent, were passed by 
unnoticed. A thousand Cromwells were overlooked to gratify the sena- 
torial demands. A corps that would have given Napoleon an army of 
marshals, was ignored to conciliate the selfish greed of the politicians. A 
thousand Neys were repelled by the war department, to make way for 
the scions of the millionaire, the kinsmen of the secretary or his collabo- 
rators. Not one in a thousand of the accomplished soldiers, graduated 
from our great military school, found an opportunity to make use of his 
attainments, to exhibit his gratitude to the patrie. Never in the most 
absolutist heydey of the monarchies of the old world was such open nepo- 



THE SANITARY COMMISSION. 361 

tism, such subservience to class and rank indulged. Politics, not war, 
was the animating sentiment that ruled the formation of the army. This 
we saw in its most hateful form in 1861 and onward, but it was to a cer- 
tain extent forced upon the inexperienced chief magistrate, who faced 
the rebellion. It took four years of pillage and slaughter to stiffen Lin- 
coln against the perfidy of the contractor, the Shylock and the privileged ; 
it was supposed that the lesson had been taught for all time. But the 
first month of the war revealed that it was not. The contractor, callous, 
grasping, insatiate, was given carte blanche in the war department, and 
knavery held the army by the throat from the moment it reached the 
rendezvous, until the moment the discharge papers were signed. Where 
the private buyer would have been asked to pay a dollar, the government 
was forced to pay from ten to one hundred, and then did not get what 
the specifications called for. 

During the Civil War, vast as were the preparations made by the au- 
thorities, our battlefields would have proved Golgothas, had it not been 
for an enlightened body of women and men, known as the Sanitary Com- 
mission. This organization embraced the aid of the kindly disposed in 
every community in the Union. During the five years of its operations 
in the field, it received and expended twenty-five millions of dollars. It 
saved 200,000 lives, that would have been otherwise sacrificed by lack of 
prompt care and intelligent nursing. For no matter how perfectly organ- 
ized a medical department may be, it is physically impossible to transport 
and keep on the verge of the battlefield, surgeons and nurses in numbers 
sufficient to attend the mangled. In one volley from musketry, a thou- 
sand wounded may fall. How would it be possible to have a surgeon at 
hand for each sufferer? The Sanitary Commission to a great extent 
solved this dreadful problem by equipping its own ambulances, which 
moved with and under protection of the armies. 

When the war with Spain arose, the spirit of the founders of the Sani- 
tary Commission came back, and the humane all over the land took in 
hand the work of preparation. Money was contributed in sums lavish 
enough to conduct a campaign. An army of nurses, large as the con- 
tingent of soldiery summoned by the President, came eagerly forward to 
enlist in hospital work. With enlightened patriotism, all local societies 
and Samaritans put themselves in unison, or merged their efforts in the 
Red Cross. This splendid society needs a word of retrospect to make its 
magnificent utilities comprehensible. As the battle is not always to the 
strong, nor the race to the swift, all the heroism of the brief campaign in 
Cuba was not illustrated by the panoplied warrior. No history that fails 



362 THE RED CROSS. 

to take into account the enduring effects, the consummate faculty dis- 
played by the Red Cross legion, would be in any sense a comprehensive 
picture of a momentous epoch. Side by side with the marches, battles,* 
sieges, surprises — all the vicissitudes, indeed that the armies and navies 
met and vanquished, stands the noble ministry of the Red Cross. Indeed 
the name of Dewey, himself, was hardly better known than that of Clara 
Barton, the sagacious Captain-General in the Samaritan campaign. 

Wherever the weak, the wounded, the ailing, the neglected — the in- 
numerable host, that in the best managed wars, must suffer some depriva- 
tion and need succor, were, the assiduous, patient, benignant ministers of 
this new adjunct to war, were seen and felt. There was not a home or 
hamlet in the land, with a son or a citizen under fire, who had not cause 
to know the efficiency of Miss Barton's modest ministers. The Red Cross 
indeed, is one of the evidences that civilization has diminished some of 
the calamities men and peoples bring upon themselves, when they give 
way to the hereditary instinct and invoke war — where peaceful means are 
looked upon as too slow. 

Forty years ago, a kindly Swiss, Henri Dunant was caught upon the 
scene of carnage, the battlefield of Solferino presented after the French 
and Austrians had fought all day. The wounded were lying in ghastly 
heaps, deserted. The medical train was unequal to attending a thou- 
sandth part of the victims. Dunant, reflecting on the hideous spectacle, 
imagined a society, whose business it should be to accompany armies and 
minister impartially to each victim on the field, irrespective of his nation- 
ality. On his return to his Swiss home, he set his idea forth in an elo- 
quent plea, suggesting the formation of a corps of Samaritans, devoted 
exclusively to the wounded. The heart of the European world was 
touched by the recital. A convention was called by the kindly, the phil- 
anthropic. This remarkable assembly of the humane, met in Geneva in 
the year 1864, at the very time our battlefields were covered almost con- 
tinuously with hecatombs of the maimed. Representatives from every 
people in Christendom attended the organization. A compact was signed 
— pledging the signatory nations to an inviolable neutrality toward the 
members of the society during all succeeding wars while at work on the 
field of battle and covered by the insignia, adopted in compliment to the 
Swiss republic — the flag of the confederation. The flag of Switzerland 
is heruldically described as " on a field gules, a cross argent." This is the 
flag of the society all over the world, the colors being reversed. The 
insignia is jealously guarded, and the brassards and armlets, that are 
sewed on the sleeves when issued in time of war, are marked with private 




Miss Clara Barton. 

President American Red Cross Society. 



MISS CLARA BARTON. 365 

devices, so that both armies may be protected from spies, and none but 
those engaged in the work of helping the wounded shall be "immune." 

Sixty two nations are now members of the Red Cross. In 1882, Miss 
Clara Barton was accredited to the Red Cross convention as the delegate 
from this republic. Since then, her efforts have been incessant to bring 
the organization up to the same efficiency that marks any department of 
an army in campaign. Through Miss Barton's suggestions and active 
advocacy, the scope of the society has been constantly enlarging. Some- 
thing like training-schools for nurses, have been organized — to aid the 
afflicted, not only in war. but when calamities occur at any time. Though 
comprehending but vaguely the vital succor this organization brings to 
the battlefield, the war had no sooner begun than the society was borne 
down with proffers of aid, both by volunteer nurses, medicines — even 
vessels, to carry the afflicted from port to port. Alongside the fleets in 
Florida and side by side with the blockader in Cuban waters, the Red 
Cross banner became as familiar as the flag of the republic. 

In the awful days of deprivation that marked the advance to Santiago, 
the Red Cross may be said to have been the only organized aid to the ail- 
ing, the wounded, the helpless. These devoted companies hovered where 
danger was deadliest; they ministered to the wounded, under shot and 
shell ; they braved the deadly fever of the plague smitten camps and to 
their zeal and devotion, many a home owes the safe return of husband or 
father, son or brother. No sooner were the ranks under fire than the Red 
Cross was called. The stretchers were inadequate to carry out the 
maimed, the nurses sought their charges, almost on the line of fire. In 
the extraordinary march to Santiago, the army not only lacked proper 
raiment and food, it lacked the presence of a medical corps. This the 
Red Cross, to a surprising extent remedied. But everything was lacking, 
it seems, from the testimony that even the cooperation of the constituted 
medical hierarchy was refused, or if rendered was in a spirit so churlish that 
disaster followed. There were no correspondents to proclaim the heroism 
of this devoted band. But thousands of private letters, informed the 
country of the work done, water borne from the very cannon's mouth to 
the choking soldiers, tents improvised by a sheet thrown over the limb 
of a tree, such dainties cooked in portable stoves, as a compact larder 
afforded. Above all, the tender handiwork of women. 

Incredible to say, the head of the medical department of the United 

States army, opposed himself from the first, to the utilization of the Red 

Cross agencies in succoring the wounded. He opposed and impeded the 

going to Cuba of the women nurses, yet when the hour of need cmne, 

20 



866 



SUFFERING IN THE CAMPS. 



the constituted instruments of his department were not on hand. The 
food, medicine— the paraphernalia of the most elementary hospital, was 
nowhere near the fields where 1,700 dying men were in extremity. The 
tale of the lamentable exhibition of mismanagement had begun to be 
told, long before the soldiers left the various camps of concentration. 
Acrimonious controversies filled the public press. In these it was shown 




THE RED CROSS IN THE FIELD. 

that by design or incapacity, thousands of men were hurried to isolated 
spots, far from the aid of civilized communities and held in semi-impris- 
onment, with none of the supplies at hand essential for health, let alone 
comfort. The outcry from Tampa, Chickamauga and elsewhere, coming 
in the stress and strain of preparation, did not attract general attention ; 
but when the appalling pictures of an almost studious neglect of the 
wounded, accompanied the thrilling portrayal of the battles fought, then 
the public mind was deeply impressed. 

It required, however, the exposure of the inhuman transport of the 



THE SENECA AND CONCHO. 367 

convalescents on two steamers, the Seneca and Concho to arouse public 
indignation to a white heat. The pictures of almost depraved inattention 
embodied in the experience of the victims of these two ships, was an in- 
dictment of the humanity as well as the capacity of all in any way re- 
sponsible. The defects were indeed so harrowing that many journals 
shrank from reproducing the ghastly pictures. A Brooklyn critic was 
not thought to exceed the proper limits of reproval in asserting: " The 
state of things on the Seneca, the other day, and on the Concho, this 
week, was a disgrace to the United States. It made the army bureau of 
medicine and surgery a worse enemy to the sick, wounded and suffering 
by the war, than the Spanish Mausers, Cuban filth, yellow fever or trop- 
ical typhoons combined. No culprits or imbeciles responsible for the 
wrongs, must have to do with the investigation in any other role than 
that of accused defendants. 

"And such of the incompetents as seek to put the blame on the Red 
Cross, should be especially suspected. The Red Cross has stood out as 
preeminently the far-sighted, deft-handed, alert, systematic, sane and sym- 
pathetic force of amelioration in this war. Its women and men expected 
bad results as possibilities — and were prepared to meet them. Wherever 
they have had way, and sway, things have gone right. Wherever red 
tape and bureaucracy have stood in their way, Seneca facts and Concho 
facts have indelibly disgraced our government and torn the hearts of our 
people with agony and horror. 

" The medical bureau has been even worse than that of the quarter- 
master — general's. More could hardly be said. Troops have been sent 
where there was no food. Food has been sent, unfit to eat. Camps have 
been located in pestiferous places. Men not even at the front have died 
like sheep in American camps. And verified complaints, and unanswer- 
able evidence have been met by a sturdy mendacity, an invincible igno- 
rance or a fiendish indifference. And what is the transportation bureau — 
whatever be the official name of it — doing? Is it smitten too with in- 
competency? Why are not the regiments of immunes now at Santiago, 
that the well of the fifth corps could be carried to the Cuban hills and the 
ill brought to Montauk Point? Were a thousand transports at anchor 
at Santiago, they could not be loaded up without sufferers until the im- 
munes were there for garrison duty. We dare not reproduce the details 
of the sufferings. They are criminal, because largely preventable suffer 
ings. We dare not lift the veil. The facts are awful. They ought to be 
incredible, for they ought to be impossible. The war, fortunately is over. 
But the accounting with the people of Spain should not prevent the ac 



368 SCATHING CRITICISM. 

counting of the press, the people, and Congress, with those whose incom- 
petency makes them worse than Spain. For Spain was licensed to hurt 
our boys, and these imbeciles were licensed, paid, commissioned and 
sworn to help them. And yet because of them, the mortality since the 
enemy surrendered, far exceeds the mortality of battle. Shame on the 
fact ! Justice in the form of punishment for those to blame for the fact ! " 

Goaded by outcries from all sides in this tone, Secretary Alger wrote a 
note of almost flippant lightness, dismissing the abuses as incident 
to war ! 

An ex-minister of the United States, Robert B. Roosevelt, voiced the 
sentiment of the country in a swift response. In a letter to the press, he 
wrote: "I have read with surprise and equal indignation the letter of 
Secretary Alger to General Dodge. Its callous and heartless indifference 
to the sufferings of our soldiers, is most unworthy of a patriotic public 
officer, and almost incomprehensible in a father with a son at the front, 
exposed to the unnecessary hardships the men have been furced to 
endure. It even seems to me to furnish the keynote to the situation, for 
if the head of the department is cynically indifferent and careless, the 
underlings will be more so, and feel justified and sustained. When every 
father and mother in this land who has a son in the war, is bitterly out- 
raged at the want of proper precautions, or ordinary forethought, not to 
say downright peculation — for as yet, no one seems to know where the 
blame should be placed — the Secretary of War — the man whose reputa- 
tion is most involved, the man who has the greatest responsibility— coolly 
writes to General Dodge : — ' You and I know what this means. It has 
always occurred and always will occur. That is war, and war would not 
be war without it.' Is that anything but a carte blanche to any one in 
any way connected with the war department to ill treat, under feed and 
even rob the soldiers, as much as he pleases? 

"I am not a military man, Secretary Alger, but I take issue with 
every one of your brutal and self-sufficient assertions. It has not always 
occurred, except when incompetent men were in places of responsibility. 
It will not continue to occur, even if we have to get another Secretary of 
War. It is not war. It exhibits on the other hand, utter incapacity for 
the simplest duties of war. No war could be carried on successfully, if 
such things were to be allowed to exist, as your letter would seem to 
imply that you are perfectly willing they should. The country found 
itself unexpectedly brought face to face with the dread realities of con- 
flict. A call was made for volunteers and they poured out to the number 
of nearly half a million, counting all who offered their services. They 



ALWAYS HUNGRY. 369 

knew they had to brave the bullets of the enemy, the fever and the pesti- 
lence and the loss of comforts and often employment, but they did not 
think that they were to be half starved, and then told that to complain 
was unpatriotic; that even to write home to their families was spreading 
disaffection. 

"I do not intend that this attempt to assist them shall be made per- 
sonal. No one's name shall be brought in ; no one shall be accused of 
grumbling as the Secretary endeavors to do. If the men who defend the 
system desire to make it personal with me they can, but they shall not 
cast imputation on those, who having given up everything for their 
country, taken their lives in their hands and left home and family, are 
half starved even before they left our shores, are huddled in transports in 
a way to renew the horrors of old time slave trade, and are sent home 
when sick and wounded, crowded to excess, uncared for, without water 
or suitable nourishment, and with surgeons unsupplied with instruments. 
If Secretary Alger had the heart of a man, he would, instead of indulging 
in ill-timed sarcasms, have been the first and most persistent in finding out 
where lay the blame for all this wrong and suffering, and, instead of 
announcing that they were to continue, would have been the most urgent 
in bringing them to a sudden and decided termination, instead of at- 
tempting to silence complaints by insinuations against the patriotism of 
those who would remove the cause from them. 

"I do not know who is Commissary-General and have had no personal 
quarrel with him or anybody else, but I do know that the army ration is 
abundant and far better for the men than the ' stuff,' as one of them 
called it, we are trying to get to them often vainly I fear, in place of the 
good and appropriate food which the government ought to supply to 
them. But when one of them writes 'mother I am always hungry,' is it 
surprising that that mother endeavors to get to him the best she can and 
whatever she can ? Think of it Mr. Alger and see if it does not awaken 
something better than sarcasm in your mind. The boy, always hungry, 
always wet, always facing the Mauser rifles of the Spaniards, in the 
trenches day and night, ready at any moment to charge into 'the valley 
of death' as they did up the heights at Santiago, and yet through the 
fault of some one, contractor, official or whoever it may be — forced to go 
'always hungry.' Would it not be more worthy, more patriotic, more 
politic even, especially in the head of the department which is responsible, 
to endeavor to find out who is to blame and bring about a reform, in- 
stead of saying contemptuously, ' Oh, such things always occur and will 
continue '? If you don't think so, wait until you hear from the fathers 



370 ON THE "MASSACHUSETTS." 

and mothers of the suffering and uselessly endangered heroes for whom 
you seem to have so little sympathy." 

Nearly every family that had a son or kinsman in the army received a 
picture of the situation, couched in terms that left no doubt of the truth- 
fulness of the extraordinary culpability revealed ; a soldier on board ship, 
for illustration wrote : 

" Figure to yourself a ship of not more than 3,500 tons, transporting 
1,005 troops, exclusive of crew, and some 1,500 horses and mules. Such 
is the state of affairs on board the Massachusetts, which is undoubtedly a 
fair sample of the average transport. Two-thirds of the promenade deck, 
which is usually small, is allotted to officers ; one-half of the remainder is 
improvised into a hospital, and the remaining half is all that the troops 
are allowed to use. The main and lower decks are entirely filled by the 
horses and mules. The troops are packed away in a quarter of the hold, 
still lower. The space is entirely filled by hammocks two deep, hung 
lengthwise, and but eighteen inches apart, with an average of fifty to the 
width of the vessel. There are five troops of cavalry on board, all of 
whom were obliged to carry below to their sleeping (?) quarters all of 
their saddles and other paraphernalia, weighing upward of eighty five 
pounds, and leaving no space whatever to walk about in. Everything is 
piled about the floor in extricable confusion. In fact, it is next to im- 
possible for a man to claim his own. 

" The filth and stench in the quarters are impossible to describe. For 
more than a day no drinking water was provided for the men. The suffering 
from thirst was intense. Everywhere could be seen men with their cups in 
their hands simply begging for a drink of water. When water was at last 
provided, it was the same that was fed to the mules, run into a large 
basin and allowed to stand between the cattle and the water closets. The 
water could not fail under these circumstances to become more or less 
contaminated, and it will be an agreeable surprise to those on board if a 
good many cases of typhoid do not break out soon after landing, as a 
result. As to the lavatory accommodations, the English language fails to 
provide words to describe such obnoxious and foul arrangements as were 
improvised at the last moment, apparently by the ship's carpenter for our 
use. 

''Our meals, if one were fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to obtain 
them, all consisted of hardtack and salted pork, varied occasionally by 
canned corn beef and beans. I say if one were fortunate enough to ob- 
tain them, for the culinary department bore more resemblance to a large 
grab bag than anything else. If one's kit happened to have gone astray, 



PECULATIONS, LARGE AND SMALL. 371 

rather the rule than the exception, one had to go a begging. Sleeping 
on board is next to impossible. Below, the stench and suffocating atmos- 
phere are intolerable. The only alternative is to lie down on the deck 
floor, if one is so fortunate as to find a place for himself. Every available 
inch of space is taken up in this way, the men lying together like sardines 
in a box, thankful at least for a breath of fresh air and relief from obnox- 
ious odors of the quarters below in the hold of the vessel, now popularly 
known as ' hell.' " J 

Peculation on a small and large scale was practiced in the furnishing 
and supply departments. The fiduciary agents entrusted with buying 
for the government, were often found in league with the contractor, 
awarding bids through the influence of political agents, rather than fit- 
ness to produce the article needed. From many posts of the country 
horrified fathers and mothers read revelations like this, taken from one 
of the most serious journals in the West: -Quartermaster-Sergeant 
James Young, of a Kansas regiment, is under arrest charged with selling 
supplies. His defence is that every other officer in similar position has 
done the same. Sergeant Young seems to be a proper person for an ex- 
ample. After he has been rigorously dealt with, the offenders should suf- 
fer till the quartermaster's department is ruled by patriotism instead of 
cupidity. Some men trade on noble sentiment, and find in war the 
rascal's opportunity for gaining riches. It is as infamous as anything of 
which we have accused the Spaniards. When splendid young men offer 
themselves by thousands in the ranks, go cheerfully into danger, go pa- 
tiently to hospital or serenely across the dark river, how hateful the con- 
duct of pilferers." 

A studious observer who had been for years among European armies 
and knows something of the conditions of the Civil War, summed up the 
situation at Tampa, just as the Shatter expedition was on the eve of de- 
parture for Santiago: "The camp at Tampa is a disgraceful evidence 
either of political jobbery or of equally gross incompetence. If this were 
in Spain we would say that a Secretary of War, willing to accept the re- 
sponsibility for locating troops at Tampa, must be either corrupt or other- 
wise unfit for office. Mr. Alger accepts responsibility for Tampa. Can 
any one ask more evidence of political jobbery than that, with the whole 
of Florida to choose from, our Secretary of War should have insisted on 
locating our main army of invasion at a point where only one line of rail- 
way owned a virtual monopoly of all transportation, and where the gov- 
ernment pays two cents a gallon for water consumed? Close to Tampa 
are camping grounds, where the men would have had abundant water 



372 



THE CAMP AT TAMPA. 



supply and where two competing roads would have greatly facilitated the 
commissary question. Why did not the War Department choose such a 
place? Why did the Secretary of War treat as impertinence any ref- 
erence to the state of things at Tampa ? Why are all Regular army offi- 
cers outspoken on this subject, when they are talking to a friend, and 
why are they afraid to be quoted ? The reason is that they all feel that 
some one at the head has a political or pecuniary interest in perpetuating 
things as they are, and that officers are not thanked for telling the truth. 




A CONVALESCENT CAMP, 



PART II. 

WHILE the immense flotilla was waiting the signal to sail at Tampa, 
the army on shore saw among the fleet an enormous steamer with 
a flag whereon a Red Cross was a constant signal to the ill or ailing. On 
the large smoke stacks the same sign invited, while from the broad sides 
likewise gleamed this world known signal of humane dedication. This 
vessel, The State of Texas, though officially ignored, was laden with the 
most precious freight that sailed in the thirty ships of General Shafter's 
armada. Aside from the Samaritan ranks that crowded the splendid 
ship, the cargo represented the heart givings of the whole land — twelve 
hundred tons of needed comfort to the ailing. This mass of stores was 
originally contributed for the Cuban reconcentiados, but the interven- 
tion of another and worse foe than the lawlessness of the isle, made the 
offering unavailable. None but Red Cross workers were on the ship. 
There were men and women experienced in many scenes of war, disease, 
disaster — wherever in short, the human needs the help of the human. 
All were veterans of varied experience where disaster made the work of 
mercy no less terrible than the horrors of the battlefield. Ten of them 
had worked among the reconcentiados. No phase of human suffering, 
perhaps, could be more appalling, no condition of human wretchedness 
more repulsive than they had faced in that ordeal of relief in Cuba. 

As the admiral to the fleet, the general to his army, the managing 
veteran at the head of the Red Cross, Clara Barton, is to this Samaritan 
order. The seventy years of her life have neither impaired her faculties 
nor diminished her emulous eagerness to do and dare. No soldier in the 
barrack held himself so disciplinedly at the call of authority, as this ven- 
erable incarnation of benignity holds herself at the beck of duty — of 
goodness. Her work in Cuba, before the brazen gates of war closed her 
out, was equal to the hardest undergone by a commander of a corps at 
Santiago. It is testimony of the universal recognition of this extraordi- 
nary woman's genius in well-doing, that the blunt soldier, Blanco, saw 
her quitting the Cuban capital with misgivings. " Your departure, Miss 
Barton," he said, " means more to me than the departure of your Consul- 
General. It means the possibility of war." 

The sight of this great woman fairly awed the official hierarchy at 

C3733 



374 MISS BARTON'S WORK. 

Tampa, who thought themselves in slavish bondage, if they devoted six 
hours a day to routine. The observer near Miss Barton saw her day be- 
gin with a mail that would dishearten a statesman aided by a corps of 
stenographers. No woman could arouse such sentiment as is felt in this 
heroine's ordinary atmosphere, who is not possessed of the qualities that 
make the exceptionally great. The character, conduct, distinction of 
the mass who obey her behests, is at once a tribute to her genius and a 
testimony to the results that genius achieves. Their inspiration is the 
belief in her honesty and singleness of purpose. Understanding of the 
work comes afterward, and later enthusiasm. It is this inspiration that 
holds men and women in the service of the Red Cross without pay. 

One of the assurances that reconciled the pacific millions to war, if 
there could be such a state of mind as reconciliation to what all of gentle 
mould abhor, was the circumstantial exposition, published in every jour- 
nal of the day, that medical science had gone hand in hand with the 
lethal weapons in betterment and invention : that to be wounded was no 
longer certain death, hardly even a temporaiy pain. Medical amateurs 
impregnated the ranks with such confidence in the manifold appliances 
for mitigating bullet wounds, that thousands of the credulous, yearned 
for this heroic distinction — a scar in defence of the flag. Theoretically 
our national medical service was perfection. If prescription and precept 
could make it so, it certainly would be. But — between the rubrics, as 
set down, and the practice as witnessed, there was a most melancholy 
gulf. For a body of men known as a division, which may comprise from 
5,000 to 7,000 men, a hospital, tent, or building, if such be accessible, is 
prescribed. Three per cent, of the enlisted men are assigned to aiding 
the w r ounded to this haven in the time of battle. The able-bodied men 
thus taken from the ranks are subjected to severe discipline. They are 
thoroughly drilled and have absolute and entire charge of the wounded 
from the moment they fall, until they pass into the hands of the surgeons 
in the field hospital. These men are provided with stretchers and are 
expected to keep close to the deadly line of the advancing soldiery — to 
pick up the wounded. Naturally, to avert calamity the hospital is be- 
yond the range of fire — that is the old range — before the new gun came 
into use. This necessitates carrying of wounded from one to three 
miles. The surgeons are rigorously prohibited from performing any am- 
putating function under fire. The fate of the wounded rests in the hands 
of the one who applies the '"first dressing." In other days amputation 
was regarded as vital, the moment the wounded reached the doctor. 

In the Civil War it was the practice to set up a kind of hospital, with- 



FIRST DRESSING. 375 

out even a tent, in many cases, just out of range of the enemy's musketry 
fire, where temporary dressings were hurriedly applied, and amputations 
performed, chiefly for the purpose of checking hemorrhage. The probe 
was active, the removal of the foreign substance being regarded as a mat- 
ter of moment. The " first dressings " would do, it was considered, until 
the wounded could be carried to a more permanent hospital. All this is 
changed. The first dressing calls for the utmost care and nothing short 
of perfection is aimed at by the regulations. To any one who knows 
the severe requirements of septic or antiseptic surgery, it must be ob- 
vious that the battlefield is no place for the first dressing. The medical 
experts hold that it is far better that a wounded man should wait three or 
four hours, if necessary, protected from the danger of hemorrhage by the 
windlass or circular bandage, which every litter bearer carries, and knows 
how to apply, than to risk his life in the first dressing, that leaves any- 
thing to be desired. As a rule, the soldier who is not killed outright, 
will save life and limbs, if the first dressing is perfect. It is another dis- 
covery of the fraternity that except when it kills instantly, it is not the 
bullet that kills. The thousands of men, an eminent surgeon declares, 
who have died of their wounds in tho nn«t roqlly died of conditions that 
were due to the wounds, but coiua nave been prevented if the surgeons 
had only known how. 

A plodding French student, whose name is unknown out of his own 
country, revolutionized the art of the surgeon, in the discovery of anti- 
septic treatment. This was Guilbert Declat. He confided the result of 
his labors to the French medical academy and Pasteur declared it the be- 
ginning of a new scientific treatment. It was. A Scotch surgeon, Doc- 
tor Lister, possessed himself of the preparation, pushed it on a little 
farther and it is now known as the " Lister method." The discovery has 
revolutionized medical treatment in a majority of cases long considered 
difficult if not irremediable. Dr. Schwam found that the decay of meat 
was always accompanied by the multiplication of microscopic creatures. 
Then he examined the ordinary atmospheric air, and he found that it was 
filled with microscopic life. He thought that if he could exclude the 
air from meat it might not putrefy. And it did not. He thought gan- 
grene might be regarded as a sort of putrefaction, due, like the decay of 
meat, to microscopic creatures in the air. He covered wounds with some- 
thing that could exclude these minute organisms or else destroy them, 
and the result was no more gangrene and no more erysipelas. If these 
creatures, these bacteria, caused putrefaction, might they not be the cause 
of infection also, since there seemed to be something common to putre- 



376 ANTISEPTIC SURGERY. 

faction and the morbid processes, to diptheria, erysipelas, splenic fever, 
septic poisoning and the like? To understand the part atmospheric 
germs bring about in causing death, following wounds, is to enable the 
practitioner to comprehend the importance of a perfect " first dressing." 
The whole purpose is to exclude or destroy the germs that kill. Only 
the experienced surgeon can appreciate the care this requires, and he 
argues that it is impracticable on the field of battle. 

It was chiefly because of the necessity of making the first aid to the 
wounded, so complete as to elude the common causes of death, that " emer- 
gency hospitals " were established in cities. The injured were liable to 
fall into incompetent hands, which was not formerly looked upon as so 
grave a matter. Now it is known, that the first surgeon to touch a case 
must have all the appliances and conveniences, and all the knowledge and 
skill, and also the sense of the importance of his art, to enable him to de- 
feat the minute enemies of life. It is known that any attempt to disin- 
fect a wound thoroughly, in the street or at a corner store is practically 
futile. For the same reasons it is held, it cannot be done on the battle- 
field. Probing for bullets in the confusion and lack of paraphernalia is in- 
terdicted. All the instruction given by authorities in military surgeiy, 
direct that the arrest of hemorrhage, which is the single immediate dan- 
ger, shall be effected by the use of elastic bandages. It is safe, it is held, 
to trust to this entirely for four or five hours, but not longer. As it com- 
pletely checks the flow of blood to the injured part, serious consequences, 
including gangrene, might follow, if too long continued. 

It is one of the many functions of modern surgeiy, to treat wounds of 
the extremities as though saving them was a matter of course. Amputa- 
tion is not attempted except in cases in which the soft parts, involving 
also the vessels and nerves, are so lacerated as to make the nutrition of 
the injured member impossible. In the Civil War, it was the exception 
to spare an injured limb ; the first suggestion, save in the case of slight 
flesh wounds, being amputation, because a stump was less dangerous than 
a wound. Dr. Senn, the chief operating surgeon with Shatter's army, de- 
clared that operative interference is indicated in all penetrating gun-shot 
wounds of the skull, while gun-shot wounds of the chest are to be treated 
by hermetically sealing the apertures under the strictest asceptic condi- 
tions. Penetrating gun-shot wounds of the abdomen, which were for- 
merly regarded as equivalent to death, can be subjected to operation with 
many chances of success. If a patient is in a condition that he is likely 
to survive the comparatively slight shock of the operation, laparotomy is 
performed, if life is threatened by hemorrhage. It is possible to save the 



ADVANCE IN MEDICAL SCIENCE. 877 

lives of persons whose intestines have been perforated many times by a 
bullet. Such wounds were formerly inevitably mortal. A study of the 
practice of modern military surgery shows that in a vast majority of 
wounds, it is the dressing and not the operation that is chiefly depended 
on. Chest wounds are the most dangerous, but frequently the hemor- 
rhage, which is the only cause for fear when the possibility for poisoning- 
has been excluded, stops automatically. 

All this knowledge which would have seemed profound scholarship to 
the medical staff of Napoleon's armies, was, if not familiarly known, at all 
events, laboriously inculcated in the staff quarters of the regiments. In- 
deed, treatises embodying most of the foregoing were dealt out to the 
private soldiers, who were expected to arm themselves with antiseptic 
appliances, for self-aid in the emergencies of the battlefield. To the 
ordinary pack the soldier carries, a compact little pharmacopoeia was 
added — so that if deprived of a surgeon, he might himself stanch a bad 
wound, and even make a maimed member serviceable for a time. But, 
the road from Siboney to Santiago dealt disasterously with these sage 
precautions. Everything portable oozed away, so to speak, in the swel- 
tering heat, the tangled thickets, the path of pain, which made even 
clothing an abrading torment. 

It may be doubted whether the familiarizing of the soldier with the 
occult part of surgery makes to his value as a fighting machine or his 
constancy in the dismal purlieus of science, the hospital. It is no stimu- 
lation to the spirit to know that the modern wound, occasioned with a 
bullet that can be sped with certainty two miles and with some effect, 
more than that, is less fatal to the tissues, because it cuts everything op- 
posing it, like a blade; that science to meet this has invented remedies 
that stay poison, help nature and discard the need of cutting and slashing 
— which of old was the remedial panacea of surgery. The battlefield 
ought, after sixty centuries of description, to be a well-known horror to the 
most morbid — but the hospital on the field evades the most intrepid un- 
dertaker in embalming horror. For on the cot or on the pallet, lies the 
relic of what an hour or two before, was the embodiment of that mysteri- 
ous entity, the soldier; the agent of a people's final mandate, the execu- 
tioner of everything like civic, religious or even moral precept. He may 
murder, he may burn, to a certain extent he may pillage ; he may, must 
in short, put behind him every admonition taught at the fireside, the 
school, the church, the social forum. A bit of lead has for the moment 
made him as useless to himself 01 his country, as when he came naked 
into the world. 



378 



A VIVID CONTRAST. 



This is the vivid contrast which makes the scene of the Red Cross 
ministry, or the regimental, or division hospital, a spectacle as thrillingly 
suggestive, as its forerunner, the battlefield. Painters of old — the 
greatest among the masters, essayed as a piece of realistic horror — the 
Dance of Death, but the most agonizing of these falls far short of the 
spiritual atrocity the field hospital realizes, when death has set his signets 
from cot to cot. The mind of the sufferer would be the most thrilling of 
introspections — as the consciousness shapes itself into the smitten body. 
For one of the abiding phenomena is the uncertainty of the dim con- 
ciousness, whether the body is awaking beyond the bourne, or that 
reality is before the inert eyes. 




ON A HOSPITAL SHIP, 



VI. 

TO a people like ours who see a marsh on the prairies transformed into 
a city ranking fourth or fifth in dimensions among the municipali- 
ties of the world, it excites but languid interest to follow the vicissitudes 
of a capital like Havana founded in 1508 ! Yet this enchanting entrepot 
of one of the loveliest lands known to man, ought to typify the people for 
whom the republic has sacrificed blood and treasure. Havana, though 
the Cuban metropolis, never gave a scintilla of indication that any num- 
ber of her citizens had the shibboleth of " Cuba Libre " at heart. In the 
history of revolts it is usually the capital that speaks the decisive word ; 
but from the first glimmerings of the restive incompatibility, which has 
finally ended in the subtraction of Cuba from the dominion of Spain — 
Havana has been more royalist than royalty itself. Every great capital 
in the world — save possibly St. Petersburg, has either incited revolution 
or by accepting it, made revolution triumphant. Yet of all cities Havana 
would warrant prophecy in its insurgent instincts. Its population is of 
the electric, mercurial congruity that revolution thrives on. For though 
the seat of the Cubanos, Havana is peopled by races not even nominally 
amalgamated. This, when we contrast the conditions of any large city 
in the new world, may serve to explain how Spanish power, so uniformly 
unwise in administration has, down to the unfurling of our flag, succeeded 
in holding the disparate citizenship in a subserviency unmatched by the 
sinister acquiescence of Warsaw or Dublin. One obvious reason for 
Havana's steadfast loyalty arose in the sway of its aristocracy. The 
Quixote tenaciousness of the Castilian in his rank and hereditaments, 
never went farther in puerility than the pretensions of the race that made 
the city the capital of Spain's most priceless conquest. Perhaps even 
more interpenetrating than the occult influence, and immeasurably more 
pervasive, was the long tenure of slavery. When that institution was 
swept away, the slave holders had not been tried in the furnace of war, 
as our aristocratic compatriots of the South were. When slavery ended in 
the South, it left the body of the people as the devils exorcised of old : the 
need of a new life came with the crash of those employed in the old: from 
the pragmatic patriarchy of hereditary mastership of human chattels, the 
Southerner confronted the instant need of bread-winning, and the new 
man was in the majority of cases fashioned by the new conditions. But 

(379) 



380 THE CASTE OF CUBA. 

in Cuba and its luxurious capital, the transformation brought about by 
the abolition of slavery was merely in the legal aspect. The rich were 
still rich and more lordly, not so easily rich as when the teeming sugar 
galleons brought the gold of the world's wave; and tobacco plantations 
were wrought by labor involving little or no outlay, but still means of 
inexhaustible affluence. The spirit however aroused by the new con- 
ditions of social forces, made for the unrest that presently took the form 
of revolt. Where caste is based upon accidence of form rather than 
established usage, the discriminated range of mankind is certain to find 
cause to hate, even the most benignant social tyrant, and everything 
seems tyrannical that is based on the imprescriptive practices of men to 
men. The families that make up the caste of Cuba and its capital, have 
not only all the glories of Spain to boast of as their heritage, they have 
300 years of ardent patriotism emblazoned among the proudest tablets of 
their Castilian or Andalusiau Patria pedigrees. For Cuba was born in 
war and lived by conquest — that is the repulse of nation after nation — 
taking advantage of Spain's growing decrepitude, to possess this radiant 
land. The navies of every European state have at one time or another 
come to disaster under the guns of the Morro. Only once were the 
walls of Havana penetrated by a stranger, when the British surprised a 
landing and reduced the defences by siege. 

The personality, so to speak, of Havana is by far the most distinctive 
of any city on this continent. One man of energy was enough to impress 
upon the city a certain individuality, that once seen or felt can never be 
quite obliterated, no matter how many cities the same eyes may see or the 
same senses comprehend. In the year 1802 the Havana of the conquista- 
dores, was burned to the ground. It was rebuilt by the man — still 
revered, as much as so mercurial a race can revere, the Viceroj r Tacon. 
From a jocund penetralia of light timber, the city arose in stone, brick 
and marble. But the climate was a drawback to the adoption of edifices 
Northern taste regards alone as imposing. The residential streets are 
almost uniformly of one story; this expression it is to be borne in mind, 
gives a misleading inference. This single story would match most of the 
two- and three-floored houses of the well-to-do buildings in northern 
cities; the space cut from the height is added to the length and breadth. 
Each house has a court or garden — much as you see them in Spain. 
Travelers are often struck by a suggested resemblance between Havana 
and what one can see of Pompeii. There is a fanciful likeness in the 
contour and the lineaments so-to-speak. This is suggested by the gay 
coloring of the walls, the almost naive decoration and ornamentation 




Brk^ -Gen'l George M. Sternberg. 

Surgeon-General, V. 8. A 



Major-Gen'l Joseph C. Breckenridge. 

Inspector-General, U. 8. A. 




Brig. -Gen'l Daniel W. Flagler. 

( Ihief of Ordnance, U. S A. 



Major-Gkn'l Henry C. Corbin 

Adjutant-General, I'. 8. A. 



LIKE A CROWN JEWEL. 



58a 



interior and exterior. This rococo taste is, however, not seen only in 
Havana. It is flagrant in Italy, in Southern Spain. But the effect in 
such a sunshine as bathes Havana, is far unlike that created in Seville or 
Florence. Here the air is of that rarefied borealis transparency, which 
suggests perpetual mirage. The shapes you see seem airy forms and no 
color can be too vivid. We never cease to wonder at the evidence the 
French give of knowing nothing of the insular race across the Channel 
that separates England from France ; yet in our very doorstep Havana 
lies like a crown jewel of exquisite rarity in the circlet of Caribbean 
beauties, and we know no more of the city, or of the people than the 




MORRO CASTLE, HAVANA. 

French do of London, or the Madrilinese of New York. We visit Madrid 
or Berlin or St. Petersburg and let our impressions take the tincture of 
awe over the venerable, yet Havana is earlier in the rank of great cities 
than any of these. It is Spanish and yet it is not; for there is no sug- 
gestion of the imposing deliberation of centuries in building Madrid, the 
impressively sinister of Toledo, Granada or Valladolid. It is not even 
comparable to Cadiz, though both cities are creations of the second flight 
of Spanish greatness. The penetralia of narrow streets, do not at first 
suggest the ease, even affluence of dwelling quarters in a city of the 
republic. Yet these uninviting lanes and alleys swarm with the real 
21 



384 BEAUTY AND DELIGHT. 

life of the capital — the bourgeois ranks. Even the aristocratic quarters 
do not suggest the unrestrained affluence we associate with the affluent 
in this country. Beauty and delight meet the eye — but nature is as much 
in the cause as art or architecture. The lordliest aristocrat is housed in 
a mansion, half of whose magnificence comes from the indescribable 
verdure that makes the island of Cuba the realization of the most gor- 
geous romance. Even in the city limits, corresponding with our exclusive 
residence quarters, the mansion of the noble and affluent is embowered 
in blossom, that seems part of the radiant architecture. The only com- 
parison that will give the reader the reality in full, is a landscape of 
Turner — all glistening marbles, amethyst skies and verdurous plateaux. 
But for that matter the whole visible fabric of the city is aglow with 
color. Nature has to deepen her tints, increase her glowing hues, to hold 
her own with blue, and yellow, scarlet and purple columns, walls, pillars 
and vestibules. It is naturally the expression of an exotic race ; a weight 
of nerves at low tension save in anger or love. Indeed, the student 
sojourning in the Cuban capital, insensibly confuses the people with the 
extraneous signs and tokens of their temperament and taste. The houses 
are not calculated for the "castle " of the Briton, the home of the dwellers 
in the United States. Of all Americans the Cuban is the least intelligible 
however, from his outer show. The windows of the one storied house 
are open to the street, so that the passers-by can study the domestic 
regime, as dawdlers crowd before shop windows to see industrial occu- 
pations in our large cities. It has its own suggestion too, that the win- 
dows are invariably barred by thick irons — precisely as the basement- 
stories in old Italian cities are. There is no concealment from the curious. 
Every domestic office from breakfast to bedding, is confidingly exposed 
to the passer-by. 

The dwellers on the island are vaguely estimated at something over 
1,500,000— probably an accurate census will reveal 2,000,000. Though 
nominally of one race — Spanish, the islanders are sharply differentiated 
into Cubanos, sons or descendants of the earliest settlers, late comers r 
and negroes. Among these is found a mingling of what is vaguely 
called Creoles— the issue of mixed Spanish and Cubanos. There is 
immeasurable pride of ancestry among the Cubanos and with it the 
rivalry of caste. The distinctions, though fleeting and insensible are as 
clearly marked as the lines that separate the Brahmin caste from the 
Pariah races in the Indies. The son or scion of the Spaniard, born in 
Cuba is reckoned a Cubano. Indeed, the subtle distinction accepted by 
custom is very much like the terms of our own law ; the progeny of a 



PUZZLING DISTINCTIONS. 665 

citizen in this republic born, wheresoever he may be born, under whatso- 
ever flag, in whatsoever dominion, is legally a citizen of the Union. But 
the progeny of a Spaniard born in the island of Cuba, is never admitted 
to be a Cuban. On the other hand, the son of a Spaniard born on the 
island is never ranked as a Spaniard. All these puzzling and impre- 
scriptible distinctions add to the complexities of the social fabric; the 
pride of place, the pride of ancestry, the inscrutable pride of former slave 
holding, these make up a series of conditions that the administrator of the 
laws must count with in holding the scales of justice. When underneath 
all these come the ranks of the children of poverty, the progeny of the 
servile, it will be seen that a firmer hand and a clearer conscience than 
the Spanish hierarchy brought to the work might well despair in recon- 
ciling such clashing pretensions. Naturally in this absorbing pride of 
place, adoration of ancestry, there was no place for that incommunicable 
essence we know as patriotism. The most devoted of the men who 
sacrificed all they had for "Cuba Libre" were not inspired by the noble 
ideal of a homogeneous liberty; never dreamed of equal rights. Cuba 
Libre meant a regency of the despised, the downtrodden, the helot and 
the servile. To obtain a condition of things that should bring down the 
sway and humble the pride of the privileged castes, that was the ideal of 
the Cuba Librists ! It was the reclamation of their vengeance that first 
admonished General Shafter that our chief difficulties had just begun 
when the valor of the fleets and the efforts of the army had given him 
possession of Santiago. Indeed, it would seem that the countries endowed 
by nature with charms that enchant the eye and distract the sense, are 
recompensated spiritually by a perpetual struggle between the passions of 
disparate ranks. There is no land fairer to the eye than Cuba. Its 
valleys are lovelier than any tropic clime known to man, for the seasons 
of rain keep the foliage, the grasses, all growing things, in the perpetual 
green which makes the British Isles so softly beautiful to the traveler 
from the New World. Summer is rarely half over before the vernal 
charms of our fields and hills, our mountains and valleys fade ; the grasses 
are burned and withered, the foliage is parched and shriveled. But in 
Cuba, an almost daily downpour keeps the root of everything appetent. 
The soldier bent on the emprize of death is not keenly susceptible to the 
beauties of nature, but it is attested that the seasick ranks of Shaffer's 
expedition, broke into cries of wonder and delight as the bewildering 
radiance of Santiago's surroundings unfolded themselves in the rare 
pure air. 

With slight racial differences, the aristocratic Cuban may be likened to 



386 NEW CONDITIONS. 

the planters of the South before the war. The same mingling of urbane 
hospitality, tender solicitude for kin and Choctaw inhumanity toward 
the servile races. Enriched and ruined alike by slavery, the Cuban 
emerged into the new condition, irreverent, profligate, insincere, but courtly 
in manner, fascinating in social conduct. An emptier form than ag- 
nosticism rules their religious moments — which are rare. They believe, 
or pretend to believe and follow the outward form, where the inward 
grace and sentiment are lacking. To such a people there could be 
no interest in the form of government, provided the social conditions 
they inherit remain undisturbed. The gradual draining of the island's 
treasures by Spain — that is the singular prosperity coming from the soil 
and its illimitable products, alienated the old patrie worship, while it did 
not for an instant warp them to the idea of autonomy or independent ex- 
istence as a state. Had the Spanish officials sent out to administer the 
island made it less apparent that they were bent chiefly upon enriching 
themselves, the Cubanos would have been as loyal to the crown as the 
Canadians are to Britain. 

In the early days the island was intelligently administered and Cuba 
was in reality the pearl of the Spanish monarchy. But the decadence of 
trade, the suspended development of the people, was not wholly due to 
the maleficient system maintained by Spain. 

For years, any one born outside the walls of the Sacred City of Santiago, 
has been called a Cuban. The patrician groups, that is the Cubans of 
pure title, are a distinctly agreeable race physically. They are well-built, 
slender, sprightly of movement and comely in visage — often the historic 
Spanish type. They are of the same perplexing mental structure as the 
Italians or French, when expatriated — though they have never attained 
the colonial solidarity of the French Canadians. Indeed, the climatic in- 
fluence on races could find no more conclusive demonstration than the 
contrast between the French in Canada and the same race — the Latin — 
in tropic countries. 

The climate of Cuba is alternatively seductive and leonine ; the coasts 
are swept by simoon-like storms, the mountains and valleys inundated by 
rains of inconceivable violence. The foliage is dazzling in color, exuber- 
ant to incomparable brilliance, yet not always wholesome. The nature 
of the sons of the soil, partakes of these climatic phenomena — even to the 
flora of the thickets. 

In milder moods there are no people more seductive than the Cubanos ; 
in intrigue, feud, jealousy, authority, the annals of the Italian republics 
present no more harrowing instance of the refined cruelty of plot and 




_ T , ^ Wi j.^ jpjiiWjjiji —mm*. 



i;; 

i 

4 



Captain-General Ramon Blanco y Arenas, Marquis de Prna Plata. 



A SOX OF THE SOIL. 389 

passion. Yet, Spanish in lineament ; Spanish in mould, manners and 
entity, the Cubano is distinctly the son of the soil. He feels but languid 
interest in the motherland. If he be educated — and few of the Cubanos, 
save the aristocratic rich are educated, he is filled with sentimental 
reverence for the glories of the fatherland, the masters in literature, the 
splendid pedestal once held in the arts. To the elder Cubanos the island 
is or was part of Spain. He never looked upon himself as a temporary 
exile from the patria. Indeed, the descendants of the colonists bore the 
same relation to Spain that the Canadians of the Upper Provinces bear to 
Great Britain. It is very rarely that the Canadian of Ontario or Mani- 
toba or the Western Dominion, speak of themselves as Canadians. It is 
oddly enough as " Englishmen " they invariably refer to themselves. It 
is this constructive solidarity of the Cubanos with the mother-country, 
that bred such confusion in the minds of our compatriots in the bewilder- 
ing narratives of the insurrection. Whereas, the majority among us be- 
lieved that all Cubans were revolters, the fact is that not ten per cent, of 
the well-to-do — the segment that rule in other countries, had the remotest 
sympathy with the insurgents. This has been demonstrated so clearly 
since our armies undertook the invasion of the island, that the very 
presses which brought about the war are loudest in their vituperation of 
the cabals and juntas, figuring so long as the representatives of an 
overwhelming majority. There were men of high honor and incorruptible 
integrity eager to secure home rule for the island — but they were very 
few ; they would have been the first to revolt from the hideous anarchy of 
class government the hordes of adventurers aimed at. 

But though the vast majority of the Cubanos were inveterately opposed 
to the island's seizure by the " Cuba Libre " group, they were not by any 
means partisans of the Spanish. They had longing aspirations for a 
republican regime. The}'' have learned by excoriating experience that 
the spirit or aptitude for self-rule, is born, and if made, is made very 
slowly. Cuba was a republic for a few tumultuous months, after the ex- 
pulsion of the Bourbons from Spain in 1868, but gladly returned to the 
monarchical system when Alphonso XII. secured the throne. The insur- 
gent ranks in Cuba represent about what the anarchist elements embrace 
in this country and in Europe. It would have been as fair for a Euro- 
pean state, for example, to judge this republic by the Chicago, Pittsburg 
and other outbreaks during the last fifteen years, as for us to assume that 
the insurgents represented the people of Cuba. When war was sprung 
upon Spain for the liberation of the island, it was the conviction of those 
who favored it in good faith, that at the word the people of the island 



390 UNCIVILIZED CONDUCT. 

would rise enmasse to meet our expeditions and fight the battle with the 
Spaniards. 

It was firmly believed by the majority that an army of from 40,000 to 
100,000 men would spring from the Cuban jungles, asking of us nothing 
but arms ; that even in Havana and the large cities, the Spanish garrisons 
would find themselves occupied in overawing the sympathizers with lib- 
erty and home rule. Expeditions of arms and munitions were sent to 
many parts of the -*nd ; descents were made at points designated by 
the juntas in New York, Philadelphia and Washington. In no instance 
were our stupefied commanders met by forces bearing the remotest re- 
semblance to an organized army. In the eastern part of the island — 
dominated by Santiago — but impenetrable to the legions of Spain, from 
three to five thousand tatterdemalions were brought together when 
Shafter's army disembarked. But they were useless as soldiers and re- 
fused to aid in the auxiliary operations of road-making. Perhaps half of 
these men aided in the military operations, but the ingrained ferocity 
of the race became a menace to the civilized conduct of the war. They 
could hardly be restrained from mutilating the dead ; they could not be 
checked in the odious pillage of the battlefield. It required volleys from 
the small boats of the fleet to stop them from assassinating the ghastly 
remnants of Cervera's fleet. Never were benevolent legions, warring for 
humanity so grotesquely disillusionized. The French were a good deal 
surprised by the indifference of the Neapolitans and even the Poles, 
when the republic made its war for humanity in 1795-6, but some noble 
natures and real patriots were found. Our army found few or none in 
Cuba. 

The hierarchal representatives of the insurgent movement alternated 
between threats against the soldiery of the United States and proffers of 
aid, if the Cuban republic could be declared — if only for a day. The 
significance of this lies in the fact, that were the Cubans recognized — if 
only for an hour, the magnificent millions in bonds, that paid for the larmoy- 
ant propaganda in the United States, would have a legal value, and the 
inside managers of the juntas would be rich beyond the rivalry of bonanza 
princes. 

This country was reluctant to accept the first testimonies of the reality. 
But the private letters of the soldiery, written from the field, the reluc- 
tant admissions of the staff, the indignant protests of the naval command- 
ers — obliged to interrupt the work of rescue of the victims from the dis- 
mantled hulks of Cervera's fleet to stop murder — put doubt out of the 
question. It is true that allies occupying the relations imposed in free- 



THE INTRIGUE REVEALED. 391 

ing struggling peoples, do not often cooperate in amity. The British 
armies sent to Spain, in 1808, nominally to free the people, found the na- 
tives all and more than our troops found the insurgents. But the Span- 
iards at least volunteered enmasse : there was never a battlefield where 
they did not immensely outnumber the British troops and on many a 
desperate field they bore themselves with fortitude, even heroism. In 
our own struggle in 1779 the aristocrats wh° came in command of the 
French legions, were disposed to make little c pur ill-clad levies; but 
once on the battlefield, the legions of the lilies paid soldierly homage to 
the devoted soldiery of Washington ; on every field where the allies 
wrought in common, the continental battalions made up in valor, what 
they lacked in pomp or the paraphernalia of war. There were ample op- 
portunities for the insurgents to prove both fortitude and sincerity in the 
campaign in Cuba, but beyond voluable protestations, they were hardly 
heard or seen. Professedly familiar with the points selected for invasion, 
they might have saved the unacclimatized ranks of Shafter from the 
bloody reprisals of Guantanamo, El Caney, Sevilla and San Juan. The 
final disclosure of their temper and pretension was made in the refusal to 
cooperate with Shafter and their murderous attack upon a column of our 
prisoners. The exact status of the Cuba Libre intrigue was at once re- 
vealed — beyond the hope of its deluded or subsidized advocates to deny 
or to explain. 

With the blockading of the port, Havana became a city so unlike 
its usual gay self that the reports received from time to time gave evi- 
dence that the first serious dissatisfaction to the home power had become 
manifest. An evidence of this was shown in the precautions taken by 
the Captain-General, Blanco, for his proclamations indicated that he 
felt distrustful of the loyalty of the masses of the citizens. It was for- 
bidden to express any opinion unfavorable to Spain or the conduct of the 
war, the transgressor to be shot without trial. The police force became 
dissatisfied and were replaced by the military. Supplies reached the city 
only irregularly and from the first, famine added to the perplexities of the 
wretched commander. Even more formidable than the gathering armies 
of the republic, to the 120,000 soldiers under Blanco's command, the 
spectre of famine uprose. 

The courage of the loyal, and the hopes of the indifferent were main- 
tained by the preposterous reports of daily victories of the Spanish forces 
among the Philippines and along the Spanish coasts. From the day of 
the declaration of war, relays of the army were at work feverishly 
strengthening the fortifications already considered impregnable to the 



392 



UNDER THE BLOCKADE. 



ordinary appliances of war. Within a week after the guns began to roar 
over the Spanish possessions, the ill-to-do were wanderers from their 
Havana homes, only the rich were enabled to pay the exorbitant rates of 
living enforced by the blockade. 

Yet, while the beleaguering guns were expected to open daily upon the 
harbor, there was no evidence of apprehension that the city could be cap- 
tured. There was, however, vague and almost ludicrous fear of the pro- 
digious missiles fired from the Yankee battleships, the fame of which 
went to such exaggeration, that even the soldiery became timid, though 
never distrustful of their own ability to meet and defeat our legions. 




GUN SQUAD AT PKACTICE. 



PART II. 

IN one sense it may be said that all of Cuba's woes came from her re- 
laxation in slavery. While the influence of the French Revolution 
roused the neighboring colonies both in the Caribbean Sea and the vast 
continent of South America, the seductive ease and the unlaboriously 
won wealth of slave-holding, lulled the Cubans to what may be called an 
immoral political repose. Hence, while all the other colonies of Spain 
felt the leavening touch of revolution, and in many cases entered actively 
into the business of expelling alien rulers, Cuba remained tranquil, not 
>nly tranquil but chivalrously loyal to the Castilian crown. There were, 
nowever, groups here and there suffering under the heel of the slave-hold- 
ing aristocracy, instigated to attempt some amelioration in the oligarchic 
orm of Cuban rule. These attempts, however, were for many years 
poradic as they were fierce. For in every case it was the servile segment 
of the Cuban people, mainly negroes, and in some instances Creoles, who 
whispered rather than proclaimed the word " freedom." In 1837, a more 
general movement was made to induce the Spanish government to revise 
the extortionate tax system, and to admit deputies from the Cuban peo- 
ple into the national Cortes. In response, Spain redoubled its exactions, 
nd a cry very much like that of Lombardy, which Victor Emmanuel de- 
;lared the world could not afford to pass unheeded, arose all over the 
island. This seems to have been the first of the systematic attempts to 
expel Spanish rule. 

From an anarchic interlude, which in many of its excesses reached the 
horror of the San Domingo outbreak, a lesser form of exaction was ap- 
plied, more, however, because the hitherto colossal commerce of the isle 
had fallen off and the home treasury began to feel the pinch, than to 
comply with public clamors. In 1868 the excesses brought about by 
Isabella's long term of misgovernment roused the Spanish people : she 
was driven from the throne and, with a temporary republic in the mother- 
country, Cuba found itself free. 

Carlos Manuel Cespedes, a Cuban aristocrat of immense wealth and an 
energy quite unlike that of his race, was selected as the head of the state 
and the independence of the island proclaimed. There seems to have 
been the real passion of freedom in this attempt. Cespedes' forces seized 
the city of Bayamo and when brought to bay by enormously superior 

(393) 



394 A DOLOROUS EPISODE. 

forces, the undaunted mass burned their town and scattered as best they 
could, rather than surrender. For months Cuba was to every intent and 
purpose in the same condition that Gladstone described Bulgaria with the 
single exception that both rebel and royalist vied in ferocity and the in- 
human excesses that marked brute strength. 

Spanish confidence in a peaceful issue to the Cuban complication, came 
from the memory of our forbearance in a still more poignant tragedy than 
the Maine. Few even of those who contended most hotly for an end of 
negotiations, recalled in such terms as the atrocity deserved, the dolorous 
episode of the Virginius. Yet, it is certain that deep in the popular mind 
the memory of that ferocious vengeance lingered; that the name Spaniard 
recalled the sanguinary fate of the Virginius. 

It was in the year 1873. We were still healing the gashes made by the 
civil war. The Cuban struggle had begun and was carried on fitfully, by 
some of the men identified with the last revolt. Recruits were not diffi- 
cult to raise from the disbanded soldiery of the armies of the North and 
South. Our ports were filled with suspicious crafts, keeping the adminis- 
tration in hot water. General Grant, who was president, was loath to 
make conditions harder for the Spanish Republic, then fitfully struggling 
for existence with the universally admired Emilio Castellar as its presi- 
dent. 

In the early part of October the Virginius, a side wheeler paddle 
steamer, originally built for the Confederates, in Great Britain, and cap- 
tured by our blockaders, came into the possession of the Cuban Junta in 
New York. The object of the voyage was to convey leaders of the Cuban 
forces to the island. Her commander was Captain Fry of Louisiana, who 
had won high repute for bravery in the Confederate service. On reaching 
Jamaica, a British port, the vessel took on munitions of war and one hun- 
dred and sixty Cuban passengers. She was searched at Kingston and 
also at Port au Prince, Hayti, where she halted en route for Santiago — 
the port destined to witness the intrepidity of our soldiers and mariners. 
No sooner had the Virginius left Kingston than the Spanish consul tele- 
graphed her departure to General Burriel, commandant at Santiago. He 
at once despatched the gunboat Tornado to intercept the filibuster. She 
was sighted on the last day of October and a vigorous chase began. The 
gunboat was soon discovered to be the faster craft and the Virginius 
made haste to throw over her compromising cargo. 

Two thousand Remington rifles, two hundred horses for the insurgent 
staff, millions worth of the munitions the Cubans cruelly needed, were 
flung overboard. Still the gunboat gained. All night the crew and pas- 



CAPTURE OF THE VIRGINIUS. 395 

sengers fed the fires with furniture, even the meats from the larder 
1 he night gave hope ; in the morning they would be in neutral waters 
I hey were in fact, within three miles of Jamaica and therefore inviolable 
when at daybreak the vessel was found leaking. There was no escape' 
Varona, one of the Cuban generals, begged Captain Fry to blow up the 
ship rather than fall into the merciless hands of the Spaniards But Fry 
who was without fear, decided to haul down the stars and stripes and 
trust to the law of nations. 

Whatever mission the vessel might have been performing, there was no 
evidence to incriminate passengers or commander. She was put in charge 
of a prize crew and hurried to Santiago. Two courts were organized, one 
naval, the other military. Before these two bodies appeared one 
hundred and fifty-five persons, found on board the Virginius when run 
down. Of these, thirty-seven were condemned to be shot by the naval 
judges, seventeen by the military. The trial was so summary, the execu- 
tion so swift, that the Washington government could not interfere in time 
to stay the massacre; even the Spanish cabinet was kept in the dark 
until fifty-three victims had been slaughtered. Unheard-of cruelty marked 
the last agonies of the victims. They were forced to kneel to receive the 
assassin fire ; it was proclaimed with hideous unction by the Spanish 
prelate of Santiago, that twenty of the doomed crew had asked the offices 
of the church and died in the communion of their murderers ! What lent 
the ghastliest horror to the tragedy was the inability of the condemned 
to speak or comprehend the language of the accusers in the court 
I en minutes was the maximum time allowed to each prisoner on trial" 
i he monstrous Tribunal of the Terror in 1793, were more observant of 
legal torms ! 

Naturally, the consul of this republic protested against the seizure of 
a ship fiymg the union flag; against the malignant haste of the trial • 
against the travesty of legal forms, against the competency, in short of 
every step taken by the Spaniards. The bloodthirsty business would have 
gone on until the last man of the unfortunates had been done to death 
had not the urgings of our consul received the portentous backing of a 
man-of-war The captain of the ship, informed of the emergency, promptly 
sent word that he would blow the city to fragments, if another man of the 
Vilnius were injured. The halt gave time for intervention. The 
Washington cabinet spoke out decisively. The Spanish cabinet, or rather 
Castellar. took instant steps to make such amends as were possible In 
demnities were promptly paid for the murdered, and an apology in due 
form made to the republic. ** 



396 



CUBA FOR SALE. 



But the feeling aroused took little note of these perfunctory testimonies. 
War was demanded in many parts of the republic. Indignation meetings 
were held, and the press voiced the general sentiment in demanding an 
instant attack on Cuba and the expulsion of a power so inhuman in its 
vengeances. In the angriest paroxysms of wrath, it was acknowledged 
that Castellar and the Spauish republicans were sincerely shamed and 
penitent, as right-minded men should be, while the monarchists and aristo- 
crats, tacitly approved the butchery and made the liberal contrition and 




EXECUTION OF THE VIRGINIUS CREW. 



amends, the grounds of an active campaign against the tottering republic. 
But in spite of all this, it required a man of Grant's towering prestige in 
the presidency to stay Congress from the very declaration made in April, 
1898. " 

It was at this epoch, that the Virginius episode came to destroy one of 
those rare chances which come in the life of peoples and make a mock of 
diplomacy. For the republican government in Spain, finding it rather 
inconsistent to refuse the Cubans what they demanded themselves, entered 
into negotiations with General Grant's Secretary of State to sell the island 




Likii Genkkal John M. Schofjeld. Rear-Admiral Montgomery Sicard. 




Commodore John C. Watson. 



Captain Charles D. Sigsbee. 



AGAIN IN REBELLION. 



399 




for " One hundred million piastres." General Sickles was even on his 
way to Madrid, empowered to accept the proffer, when the news of the 
Virginius tragedy brought the negotiations to an end. For the people of 
the republic were in no humor to pay out money to the " butcher power " 
responsible for the slaughter of its citizens, even though those citizens 
were constructively amenable to the laws governing neutral intercourse. 

From this time until 1878 the dissatisfaction of the Cubans seemed to 
have died out, or, was repressed by the agencies peculiar to the ministries 
which held power down to 1895, when the rebellion broke out again 
though, curiously enough, mainly in the newspapers. Detailed reports 
of battles and conquests by scores of 
"patriot" chiefs, were reported from 
week to week in the presses of this 
republic, though it is very doubtful 
whether any very considerable portion 
of the readers paid any heed to the ^^raiMi§ 
monotonous iteration. In formulating 
their griefs the leaders of the insur- 
rectionary movement, dwelt mainly 
upon the commercial distresses and 
the poverty-stricken condition of the 
island: attributing these to the mis- 
government of the mother-country. 
Yet, at the same time, the neighbor- 
ing colonies of Great Britain, which 
every one supposes to be adminis- 
tered on the high plane Britain pro- 
fesses to adopt with colonies, were in 
exactly the same condition. Indeed, the episode of the Eyre outbreak in 
Jamaica, was a precise parallel to the enormities charged upon Spain by 
the publicists of this and other countries. For the Jamaicans too, like 
Cuba, were suffering from the manumission of the laboring population, 
the necessitjr for a recuperative movement and the readjustment of con- 
ditions to an entirely new system of labor. Above all, Cuba was suffer- 
ing from the rivalry of Asia, Egypt, Europe and the United States, in the 
products which had hitherto made her a monopolist in sugar and tobacco. 
For nearly thirty years the island had been trying to readjust her re- 
sources to these new conditions, and under such an unenterprising people 
as the Spaniards, this was of course slow work. Unlike other peoples, 
the rich were growing poorer while the poor were perishing. 




A CUBAN PATRIOT. 



400 



DISSATISFIED AND HOMELESS. 



Immediately on being freed the negroes refused to work; the importa- 
tion of Chinese labor proved a costly failure. The Spaniard accustomed 
to the lash in coercing the slave found it difficult to manage the equiva- 
lent of what we call ,k poor whites " in the South. Hence, great planta- 
tions fell into decay ; the farming regions became weed-grown wastes ; 
the negroes lent themselves to the demagogues and of course the Spanish 
system was not elastic enough to stretch from the tyranny of the past to 

the liberalism of the new 
conditions. In the in- 
terior parts of the island, 
hordes of the dissatis- 
fied and homeless, wan- 
dered through the bar- 
ren lands, and these in 
turn have been made 
the " patriot " battalions 
the world heard so much 
of during the recent 
troubles. With such 
conditions to go upon, 
naturally the tales told 
have been thrilling, the 
activity of men seeking 
their own ends has 
found unlimited oppor- 
tunity ; the form and 
semblance of a repub- 
lican state was pro- 
claimed early in the 
struggle, but the most 
adventurous and most industrious seeker never found a Cuban capital or 
seat of government or any of the indications of a united popular desire 
to replace Spanish rule by native. 

It was easy to foretell the unwisdom of Spain's action from the moment 
the parent state undertook to suppress a revolution, which was fictitious 
from the first. We dealt with the same conditions in this country be- 
tween 1865 and 1872, though so far as representing general sentiment can 
be judged, the odious Klu-Klux of the South far more nearly represented 
a majority of the southern people, than the motley hordes of the Garcias 
and Gomez in Cuba. It is easy to show now how humane laws and a re- 




GENERAL MARTINEZ CAMPOS. 



GOMEZ' WAITING GAME. 



401 



taxation of repression would have made the existence of insurrection im~ 
possible: would have estopped the campaign for sympathy carried on in 
the presses of this republic, silenced the demagogues in Congress and 
given the Cubans an opportunity to reclaim a system, not unlike that 
which satisfies millions of freedom-loving citizens in Canada or Aus- 
tralia. But Spain wasted her legions; it is reckoned that as high as 
200,000 men have been employed in the series of half hearted and mis- 
directed military campaigns that have desolated the most populous prov- 
inces of the island. 

It was not, however, until the astute and really capable administrator, 
Martinez Campos, was removed, that the evils of Spanish maladministra- 
tion took a form that 
aroused universal ' con- 
demnation. The tales of 
misery, dissatisfaction, 
cruelty and the failure of 
all legitimate repressive 
measures, began to form 
the staple news of the ^^- 
presses of the world. Yet 
upon examination, there 
was never in Cuba, even 
under Weyler's adminis- 
tration, more of the misery 
of want or the dissatisfac- 
tion that comes from an 
arrogant indifference to 
the protests and desires of 
the people, than the official \ 
reports to the British Par- 
liament presented on the 
recent famine in Ireland, 
or India. It is alleged — 
but it is difficult to find 
proof in the matter, that a 
large percentage of the possessions of the Cubanos have passed into the 
hands of Spaniards ; that this alien invasion lias brought about a spirit 
not unlike that which existed between the Irish of the Bogs and the 
English of the Pale. If this were really the case it would explain the 




GENEKAL MAXIMO GOMEZ. 



402 THE RECONCENTRADO SYSTEM. 

Cuban movement, but the Cubans themselves deny the fact and in proof 
remained to the last loyal to the home government. 

The followers of the rebel leader Gomez explain his methods of cam- 
paign as a waiting game. He proposed to exhaust the Spanish purse and 
deplete the ranks of the invading army not by arms or combat, but by 
fever and the natural obstacles of the country. Some of these our own 
soldiers have witnessed. For it was the jungles of Santiago, the fevers 
and the uncanny denseness of the chapparal that made the seizure of 
Santiago most difficult. 

To combat the method invented by Gomez, Weyler despising the mobs 
hidden in the jungle, invented what has become known as the " trocha " 
system. This was a series of immense ditches running from sea to sea, 
from north to south across the island at regulated distances. Behind 
these, the rebels were supposed to be cooped up ready for seizure or 
slaughter — whichever seemed preferable to the Spanish commander. But 
a soldiery capable of fighting in the open was found unequal to the tor- 
menting ordeal this extraordinary system involved ; for a twenty-mi! 
ditch, howsoever well secured by barbed wire and blockhouses at regula 
distances, must be watched day and night by a man at every yard of dis- 
tance, to hold an enterprising army of scouts, such as the Cuban insur- 
gents fought with, under control. The trochas were a failure. The 
hungry legions of Gomez crawled through them at a thousand points: 
stole to unguarded plantations, pillaged and slaughtered and fled back 
again to the jungles with impunity. 

Then the exasperated Weyler imagined the "reconcentrado" system, 
which was to gather up all the isolated agricultural population in city 
camps, and by absolutely denuding the country starve Gomez' army into 
submission. It was war — if General Sherman's definition of war be 
applicable— that is, hell— but the result secured for the insurgents, what 
neither their own leadership nor their own intrigues could have ever brought 
about— the reports of the miseries of the expatriated population roused 
indignant remonstrances, even from the absolutist presses of Berlin and 
St. Petersburg. It was this device of Weyler's that made the action of 
Congress possible ; that gave the warlike presses text and illustration for 
the lurid denunciations and incessant demands for intervention. 

It was said that 200,000 of this depopulated people died of starvation. 
In the very presses in which these figures were reported, it was vouched 
that 300,000 men were without occupation in the city of New York, and 
there was scarcely a large community in the United States in which an 
equal percentage of the slaves of want were not set forth as objects of 



A CONGRESSIONAL PILGRIMAGE. 



403 



public charity. From Bombay and the great cities of India, came reports 
• lay after day of from a thousand to three thousand dying in the agonies of 
starvation. In fact during the very years in which Cuban melodrama 
unrolled itself in the presses of the republic, the massacres in Armenia, 
the atrocious overthrow of the Greeks, came side by side with the 
Weyler "atrocities" in the Cuban island. 

Congressional missions 
on the invitation of a yel- 
low journal, made a pil- 
grimage to the scene, and 
it was probably the report 
of the grave and reverend 
Senator Proctor of Ver- 
mont, that finally kindled 
the spark that spread into 
war. For he saw — as he 
might have seen in the 
Five Points in New York, 
in the slums of London 
or the nether depths of 
Chicago, assemblies of the 
miserable, the starved and 
the homeless; and all this 
charged against the Span- 
ish system, stiffened the 
nation's arm for the im- 
pending blow. 

But hand in hand 
with our pressure upon 
Spain, came by every mail 

concession after concession, until in the Act of Autonomy the island of 
Cuba stood about in the same relation to Spain that any State of this 
Union stands to the whole republic. But it was too late. Yet it is very 
doubtful if the Maine calamity had not come fortuitously for the hopes of 
the warlike, if this republic could have been cajoled into action. A de- 
lay of a year would have given the United States the island at a hun- 
dredth part of the price in money we have paid for the privilege of the 
slaughter among her possessions. But then we should not have been the 
victors over Cervera, nor Montojo ! We should not have known, as the 
British reviews with veiled sarcasm inform us— that we are indisputably 
22 




GENERAL VALERIANO WEYLER. 



404 



THE DIABOLISM OF CASTE. 



the lion's whelps ; that on the seas we can do nearly as well as the 
mistress of them, and that on land — by some practice — we may be made 
a military nation. 

Atrocity in every conceivable form marked the sporadic uprisings in the 
provinces of Cuba. Human life counts but feebly, when the passions of 
war are let loose, but the conflicts between the Spaniards and the insur- 
gents took on almost from the first, the unspeakable ferocities of the ven- 
detta. To this, it must be borne in mind, was superadded the sanguinary 
spirit — servile insurrection — the malign diabolism of caste. History has 
recorded with a shudder the enormities that wasted Santo Domingo in the 
beginning of the century. With but slight modification the same ex- 
cesses, the same barbarous reprisals, mark the outbreaks on the Cuban 

theatre. 

Though the antagon- 
ists are loosely charac- 
terized as Spaniards and 
Cubans, all who took 
up arms were in charac- 
ter and traits essentially 
Spanish. Whatsoever, 
therefore, we picture the 
Spanish to be for good 
or ill, that also the in- 
surgents were. With 
this qualification: 
There were a large fol- 
lowing of blacks, a slight 
mingling of Cuban born, 
who had passed more or 
less time in the states 
of this republic : there 
were, too, restless 
nomads from the neigh- 
boring South American 
states — peopled by 
Spaniards in race, if not in birth — men to whom insurrection was a habit, 
a pastime. In the qualities that go to make up inspiring leadership, 
the long and bloody record is searched in vain for a single noble 
figure. The nearest approach to the patriot, as we conceive him was 
the mulatto — Maceo — whose death the Spaniards rightly welcomed 




GENERAL ANTONIO MACEO. 



FIGHTING FOR HIS RACE. 405 

as the most vital blow struck at the insurrection. Yet Maceo would 
never have been accepted as a leader among such a people as ours. 

Hardly a fortnight after the opening of hostilities, the Home Rule par- 
liament came in session, in form if not in fact Cuba was as free to fix her 
own destinies as any State of this Republic. Yet there was none of the 
popular demonstration Paris witnessed, when its National Assembly came 
together under circumstances nearly as trying as those which beset the 
new venture. Indeed, the members of the chambers seemed conscious 
that they were legislating for a lost cause. The session continued 
spasmodically during the siege, but the laws enacted gave no indication of 
what the islanders might expect had the concession come in time. The 
body was made up of the aristocrats among the Cubanos, but the process 
of electing them hardly fulfilled the idea of a constitutional regime. 

In most insurrectionary movements some figure stands out distinctly 
marked either by achievement or special fitness. In the long tale of ig- 
noble slaughter which the Cuban insurrection has presented, there is but 
one man who seems to have given his whole soul into the resolution of 
what we used to understand by patriotism. This was Antonio Maceo, 
who was fearless in fight and prudent in counsel. He was the last of an 
ephemeral line of mulattoes, and he fought for his race rather than for 
liberty. He seems to have been the only man born with an instinct for 
leadership on the field of battle. He conducted his desultory enterprises 
with a skill and sagacity which reminds the reader of the prowess and 
sagacity of our own Marion in the swamps of South Carolina, when con- 
tending against British superiority during the war of Independence. It 
was Antonio Maceo who counselled uprisings in every part of the island, 
where two or three dissatisfied could be brought together in the name of 
Cuba Libre. He had heard vaguely of the atrocious war of Toussaint 
L'Ouverture in San Domingo, and he plead by day and preached by night 
to spare neither age nor sex nor any condition of man that opposed the 
yearnings of the colored people. 

It was Antonio Maceo who undertook to prove the stupidity of Wey- 
ler's trochas. It was he who taught the nomad hordes to shelter them- 
selves under the bushes and even to make use of the shrubbery to de- 
ceive the Spaniards. Decorating a squad of his followers with a veil of 
thick branches, he moved with the patience of an animal of prey on the 
verge of the woods, reaching spots favorable for his work, and then 
slaughtered all who came within reach of the machete, the pistol or the fire- 
arm of any description his followers might happen -to possess. 

In his final plan of campaign he concerted the conjunction of Maximo 



406 



REPELLANT FREEBOOTERS. 



Gomez, Calixto Garcia and his brother Jose, to make one -determined 
onset upon the Spanish troops at Artemisia. The plan failed and, An- 
tonio Maceo conceived that suspicion of his fellow conspirers, which is 
the beginning of the end of revolutionary enterprises. It is indicative of 
the animating purpose of the insurgent ranks that, when Antonio Maceo 

met his fate, he was at the 
head of four thousand 
followers, and that he was 
defeated by a column of 
four hundred men. The 
blow was so stunning that 
the adherents of his cause 
undertook to prove that 
Maceo had been assassi- 
nated by hired minions of 
Spain in his own ranks, 
but the evidences were in- 
contestable that the four 
hundred disciplined Span- 
i iards had routed the four 
thousand overconfident 
and unruly Cubans. 

That our soldiery were 
not hasty in stigmatizing 
the Cuban insurgents as 
irreclaimable malefactors, 
perfectly impartial foreign 
observers attest. There 
were with the armies that went to Cuba, correspondents and official 
note-takers from nearly every country in Europe. The letters published 
in the European presses picture the unqualifiable hordes that flocked to 
our flag, as the most repellent freebocters, with no more idea of the 
amenities of civilized warfare than the bh ck nomads of Dahomey or Ash- 
ante. Of freedom in any other sense th n the license to pillage and as- 
sassinate, they had no more conception than the Philippine Malays, 
sworn to take a certain number of live. , to win the Moslem paradise. 
Not one in a thousand could read — not one in ten thousand knew the ob- 
ligations of citizenship. But let us look at them as set down by careful 
observers as hostile to Spain, as the most intemperate Jingo amongst us. 
"The Cubans," says the correspondent of the London Telegraj>h, "are 




GENERAL GALIXTO GARCIA. 



UNDISCIPLINED THIEVES. 407 

incapable of realizing what true liberty means. Here and there a man 
like Gomez or Maceo has some power of realizing it, but the overwhelm- 
ing majority desire not liberty, but domination. They desire to possess 
themselves of the offices and power now held by their Spanish rulers, and 
if they are permitted by the United States government to become unre 
strainedly possessed of them, they will repeat, on an exaggerated scale, 
all the cruelties and oppressions of which the Spaniards have been guilty. 
The plain truth of the matter is, that sooner or later the United States 
will be obliged to lick the Cubans into something resembling a civilized 
community, and the sooner the work is undertaken the better. During 
the last few weeks of the war I saw a good deal of the Cuban soldiers, 
and if they are to be taken as a fair sample of the race to whom they be- 
long, they are as unfit for freedom or constitutional government, as the 
savages we routed out of Coomassie jungles a couple of years ago. These 
armed insurgents are a little better than a horde of undisciplined thieves 
and murderers. Like most mongrel races, they possess all the evil quali- 
ties of both the races from which they have sprung, with little or none of 
their good qualities. They have all the cruelty of the Spaniard, without 
his chivalry and bravery, and like him, only in a more inordinate degree, 
they are filled with an insane vanity, which they mistake for pride. With 
their negro blood, they have inherited an unbounded capacity for lying, 
and they are expert thieves, while they possess none of the negro's jollity 
and good nature." 

He then describes a number of acts of cruelty he witnessed. One of 
them happened on the memorable day when Cervera's fleet was destroyed. 
" A young Spanish officer on the Maria Teresa, who had been wounded 
by a shell, was lying on the burning deck, with his clothes in flames. A 
comrade hastily tore the clothes off the wounded youth and, lashing him 
to a spar, threw him overboard in hope of saving his life. The Cubans 
saw this and came to the conclusion that the wounded man must be an 
officer of some importance. Instantly, a score or more of them began 
shooting at the poor burned and wounded figure as it drifted about 
among the breakers. This horrible brutality was too much for the chiv- 
alrous American officers and sailors engaged in the work of rescue, and 
the guns of the Gloucester and Iowa opened fire on the murderous wretches 
and drove them off the beach into the woods. I have since heard that 
bitter complaints were made by the insurgents that the work of slaughter 
was not permitted to continue. 

"About 4,000 of them were present at Santiago under Garcia and 
Castillo, but for effective fighting purposes they were not worth forty 



408 ROBBING THE DEAD. 

American soldiers. They are all right for a treacherous ambuscade or 
fighting behind cover, but they seem incapable— with their present train- 
ing at any rate, of standing in a regular line of battle. There was a fine 
lot of things lying around loose, and the brave Cubans made an excellent 
use of their time. While American soldiers were fighting the Spanish 
soldiers on the hill of San Juan or among the fields and hedges of El 
Caney, their Cuban allies were sneaking about in the rear, picking up 
the overcoats and valises that the soldiers had lain down, so that they 
might be less hampered in the charge up the steep slopes, for Cuban lib- 
erty. During the battle I saw Cubans coming back in fifteens and 
twenties— with full cartridge belts— not a shot expended— and full sacks 
of soldier's belongings on their backs, which they were hurrying with to 
their own encampment. These ruffians were so busy looting, that they 
refused point blank even to help the wounded, and I know from the evi- 
dence of my own eyes, that they did not hesitate to rob the bodies of 
American dead. A colored United States cavalryman came upon one of 
them robbing the body of a dead American officer, and to the everlasting 
honor of the negro, he brained the Cuban scoundrel with the butt of his 
rifle and killed him on the spot. Neither would the Cubans work. After 
the battle when the United States troops were laboring night and day, 
repairing the roads, digging trenches and building earthworks, General 
Shafter asked that some Cubans should be sent to assist in the work, in 
order that Santiago might be more speedily reduced, and that food and 
ammunition might be more easily and rapidly conveyed to the front. Senor 
Garcia sent back a reply stating he would be glad if the American com- 
mander would remember that the Cubans were soldiers, not laborers. I 
forbear giving the comments of General Shafter. Such are some of the 
characteristics of the people for whom the United States has sacrificed 
the lives of hundreds of her sons and expended millions of treasure. A 
more worthless race or one less fitted for freedom, does not exist, and it 
will be an evil day for Cuba and her civilization, if the insurgents ever 
obtain unrestricted domination in that unhappy land." 




Rear-Admiral George Dewey 



BOOK THREE. 
I. 

AS war releases the ignoblest in the nature of man, it none the less 
accentuates the noblest. In a people primevally young, autoch- 
thonic so to speak, war is a crucible for the refining of the superior 
natures, while exaggerating the turpitudes of the baser. The war was 
hardly ten days old when one of the figures that people in all times 
reckon as epoch makers, emerged at the hour and the place needed. 
Dewey would have been the same man had the republic never given him 
the momentous charge which he fulfilled so consummately, but in peace 
he would have lived his allotted years, served his prescribed time in the 
monotonous responsibilities of the naval hierarchy, and would have 
passed on like many another man of the same mould, whose name is 
known only in the illustrious roster of our sea soldiery. When the 
passion of praise his conquest of the Spanish fleet aroused, broke out, 
there was just enough of the romantic in his past, to enchant the hero 
worshipper. He had fought with the most illustrious of all sea captains, 
the incomparable Farragut. He had been part of that immortal fleet 
which refused to recognize the invulnerability of iron rams; he treated 
them as he would any other craft, ran them down or riddled them with 
" wooden ships," quite as equal to equal. He had seen with his ardent 
youngster eyes, the glorious Viking, lashed to the mast of the stout Hart- 
ford, in the habor of Mobile, when sinister rams and the mysterious tor- 
pedo were in the full first prime of the awe they inspired. He had 
indeed served a hero novitiate, and came by right of achievement to the 
glory that crowns his age. His was found a fitting title to stand in the 
scroll of immortality upon which the republic has embalmed the names of 
John Paul Jones, Decatur, Hull, Bainbriclge, Perry, McDonough, and 
scores more. 

To the country, a result like Manila comes as a surprise ; to the men 
that make up the navy, rank and file, the work done in Manila waters 
was a matter of course. That is to say, there is not an officer graduate 
from Annapolis, who would for an instant distrust his capacity to fight 
the ships placed under his command, to the utmost extent of their capaci- 
ties. This does not mean, of course, that all would meet the happy issue 

(411) 



412 DEWEY, THE YANKEE. 

Dewey's onset secured. Dewey, in other words, is not the "heaven 
seat" hero the emotional love to adore. He is a man far past the 
meridian, and had there been no war, he would have passed into the 
limbo of the retired, his name unknown, his fame undreamed. He is to 
the core the quintessence of the Yankee. Born in Vermont in 1837, he 
met the by no means stimulating vicissitudes of the hardy Green moun- 
tains, very much as his ancestors before him. It is significant of the part 
chance plays in the fates of even the elect, that until far beyond the age 
when the bent of the boy is decided, Dewey knew nothing of the sea. 
He was a farmer lad when he was appointed a cadet at Annapolis in 
1854, in his seventeenth year. Four years later he was graduated from 
the academy in a class of which nearly every man achieved distinction in 
the Civil War. In that war too, Dewey met the various responsibilities 
put upon him, with precisely the same certainty of touch and accuracy of 
calculation the world admires in the Manila spectacle. He went through 
the admirable routine of our young sea lions — a cruise in the Mediter- 
ranean ; and then in 1862 promptly with the opening of the naval cam- 
paign, took up the burden he has ever since borne, beginning as a lieuten- 
ant on the steamship Mississippi. Then he was attached to the West 
Gulf blockading squadron, and Dewey from the first found himself in the 
field fate was preparing for the glories of our fleets. He was thus 
brought under the command of the most heroic figure, the most success- 
ful admiral that ever fought a ship or commanded a squadron — the in- 
comparable Farragut. 

It was in these stupendous combats, that the young lieutenant learned 
the vital lesson of daring wisely, as illustrated in the passing of the 
Spanish outworks, and adventuring on the unknown perils of mines, tor- 
pedoes and shore batteries, at Manila. For never in the history of naval 
warfare, were deeds of such daring undertaken and carried out, as Far- 
ragut made part of the mission of his fleets. A young lieutenant grown, 
to a veteran, who had passed in the wooden fleets of Farragut through 
the deadly pitfalls and iron hail of the Confederate defences before New 
Orleans and Mobile, must have counted with confident certainty on what 
such steps as he had at his disposal, could do before the Spanish defences 
at Cavite. In a memorable attempt of Farragut to destroy or capture 
the massive batteries on the bluffs of Pert Hudson, the Mississippi paid 
the penalty of too close an approach to the shore. She was riddled and 
undone. The crew were compelled to take flight to save themselves, and 
Dewey among them, fled to the swamps on the other side of the great 
river. Thereafter, during the long years of the Civil War, Dewey alter- 



AFLOAT AND ASHORE. 413 

uated between the squadrons, emerging from the contest in 1865 a lieu- 
tenant-commander. His first service after the war, was on the imperish- 
ably glorious Kearsarge, in European waters. He pursued the uneventful 
regime of his profession with the relief of a year at Annapolis, and then 
took to the sea again in command of the Narragansett. His next billet 
was the survey of the Pacific, which lasted three years. In 1876, he was 
appointed Light House Inspector, and later, Secretary of the Board. In 
18^2 he commanded the Juniata, from this he was awarded the rank of 
Captain and entrusted with the Dolphin, the first of the "White Fleet." 
He was in command of the European squadron until 1888, when he was 
assigned to the Bureau of Recruiting and Equipment at Washington. In 
February, 1896, he was named Commodore, and President of the Board of 
Inspection and Survey. These varying tenures embrace twenty-three 
years of land service and sixteen at sea. It was in Jan., 1898, that 
Dewey raised his flag on the Olympia, in the Asiatic squadron. Had he 
been given his way, he would never have been in the decisive fleet that 
was to influence the result of the war; to paralyze both the hope and the 
stroke of Spain ; for slight as the chances of the over-matched monarchy, 
had the Manila fleet not succumbed with such startling completeness, the 
squadrons of Cervera and Camara would have wrought with more heart; 
and that is a large part of combat even with modern instruments of 
warfare. 

When assigned to Asiatic waters, Dewey proffered the executive posts 
of the fleet to young and promising officers, who were more than reluc- 
tant to accept. The hope that the political cast given the Cuban compli- 
cation, must end in war, had for a year or more held high in the hearts of 
the junior ranks of the navy ; for being educated for battle, these casuists 
hold that war is essential to their rounded careers. Hence the Asiatic 
squadron gave little promise of the chances that would befall in the 
event of war with Spain. It was never dreamed that operations would 
extend to the Philippines, even were war brought about by the tumultuous 
incitements of the congressional and journalistic fomentors. There was 
therefore in the assignment to the far east, the heart-burning of the sort 
gallant men feel when the looming vision of opportunity is obscured by 
the dull needs of prescriptive routine. Dewey accepted his fleet as 
honorable banishment, and his successful competitor, Howell, assumed com- 
mand of the European squadron, with roseate visions of what was to be. 

Naturally, after the event at Manila every one who had been brought 
into relation with the Yankee viking, had, or invented, some touch of 
portraiture to satisfy the eager curiosity of his countrymen. But beyond 



414 FORECASTLE STORIES. 

the fact that as a man he is of the approved type, as an officer, of the 
most distinguished qualities and qualifications, Dewey's personality does 
not lend itself to the vagaries of the poet or eulogist. He is the quint- 
essence of the race best known perhaps in the James Russell Lowells, 
Emersons, John A. Andrews — astutely reticent by natural predilection, 
yet garrulously confiding in an esoteric way. Dewey is the best ideal 
of the Yankee — cultivated, generous, self-reverencing, self-judging, re- 
ceptive to every alternation that embodies experience. His best and 
most interesting eulogists are found in the men before the mast, perhaps 
the most penetrating critics of capacity that a man in authority in a fleet 
is subjected to. He is known to be wisely lenient to petty offences, and it 
is emphasized in every anecdote bearing on his career, that he was 
intolerant only to liars. He affected deafness and blindness to the 
temporary straying of the crew, that is to say, the aberrations that signalize 
Jack, when his rare vacations on shore leave him helpless before the 
seductions of the cup. A tar in Washington who sailed with the con- 
queror of Spain's Manila fleet, confides this fascinating picture of the 
Dewey known in the "forecastle": 

" He's what I'd call a little fellow as to height, but he surely looked 
bigger'n a Dutch frigate when he stood on his side of the mast and you 
were up in front of him. But he was a tender-hearted man on the cruise 
when he and I were shipmates. He'd try not to see or hear things that 
he didn't want to see or hear. None of us knew him — up forward I 
mean — as a commander. Some of us had been shipmates with him when 
he was a deck officer, and had never got the worst of it at his hands. 
But we weren't sure how he'd 5 stack up' as a skipper. We weren't long 
in finding out. We had to sailorize all right, but there wasn't much 
'brigging' with Dewey. He didn't like to see a man in double irons on 
his tours of inspection. We hadn't been to sea with him very long before 
we ' got next ' to how he despised a liar. One of the petty officers went 
ashore at Gibraltar, got mixed up with the soldiers in the canteens up on 
the hill and came off to ship 'paralyzed.' He went before Dewey 
at the mast next morning. He gave Dewey the ' two-beers-and-sun- 
stroke ' yarn. ' You're lying, my man,' said Dewey. ' You were very 
drunk. I myself heard you aft in my cabin. I will not have 
my men lie to me. I don't expect to find total abstinence in a man-o'- 
war's crew, but I do expect them to tell me the truth, and I am going to 
have them tell me the truth. Had you told me candidly that you took 
the drop too much on your liberty, you'd have been forward by this time, 
for you, at least, returned to the ship. For lying you get ten days in 




Brig.-General Thaddeus H. Stanton. 

Paymaster-General, I". S. A. 



Brig -General Guido N. Lieber. 

Judge-AdvocateGener.il, U. S. A. 




Brig.-General John M. Wilson. 

Chief of Engineers, U. S. A 



Brig-General A. W. Greeley. 

Chief Signal Officer, U. S. A. 



ONE CHRISTMAS DAY. 417 

irons. Let me have the truth hereafter. I am told you are a good sea 
man. A good seaman has no business lying.' 

"After that there were few men on board who didn't throw themselves) 
on the mercy of the court when they waltzed up to the stick before 
Dewey, and none of us ever lost anything by it. He'd have to punish us 
in accordance with regulations, but he had a great way of ordering the 
release of men he had to sentence to the brig, before their sentences were 
half worked out. 

" Dewey was the best liberty-granting skipper I was ever shipmates 
with. He hated to keep quarantined men aboard, when the good-conduct 
men were flocking off to the beach. One fine Christmas Day in Genoa 
harbor, all the men entitled to shore liberty lined up at ten o'clock in the 
morning to answer muster before taking the running boats for the shore. 
There were about forty of us — myself among the number, who were 
quarantined aboard for having raised Cain ashore in Nice a few weeks 
before. Our quarantine was for three months, and it wasn't half run out 
on this Christmas Day. Dewey stood at the break of the poop, with his 
hands on his hips, watching the liberty party line up. Us fellows that 
couldn't go were standing around the gangway, smoking our pipes, and 
looking pretty down in the mouth, I guess. The big liberty party — there 
were a couple of hundred men in the batch — finally got away, and the 
ship was practically deserted, except for us quarantined fellows. Dewey 
watched us for a while out of the tail of his eye. We were leaning over 
the side, watching the receding boats with the big liberty party. Dewey 
went up on the poop and walked up and down, chewing his moustache, 
and every once in a while shooting a look at us men up forward. Finally, 
he walked down the poop ladder and straight forward to where we were 
grouped. 

" ' You boys hop into your mustering clothes and go on off to the 
beach. I'll let you have a couple of the running boats when they return. 
Come back with the other fellows when you get ready. Don't raise any 
more trouble ashore than you can help.' 

" There wasn't a man in the gang of us that didn't want to hug little 
Dewey for that, and you can gamble that we gave him a ' cheer ship ' that 
rang around the harbor of Genoa. We all got marked in the log as 
« clean and sober,' too, when we got back to the ship, for we weren't going 
to do any cutting up on Dewey, after the way he'd treated us." 

Volumes of the closest study couldn't present a more graphic picture of 
the great seaman, for the eye of the sailor is like the eye of the child, 
single in its purpose of seeing things as they are. Naturally, the origin 



418 OF " LATIN " BLOOD. 

of the family becomes a subject of discussion. Like Farragut, the ancient 
stem of the race grew in what is vaguely called "Latin " soil. The first 
Deweys were Douais — probably named from the city in northern France. 
Emigration and residence in England bred the corruption of the name, 
we see in all those transplanted from the Gauloise surroundings. It 
therefore appears that two of the most illustrious of our naval heroes 
were growths of "Latin" blood — a point worth signalizing while the 
idiotic clamor of "Anglo-Saxon" antecedents are counted as indicative of 
some rare superiority in men or peoples. A British journal contributes an 
anecdote of Dewey that reveals one of the ineffaceable traits of his 
Gauloise origin, " While on his European post, in 1883, Dewey was forced 
to put himself under an eminent British specialist. He was suffering 
from abcess of the liver in a very complex form, and was not expected to 
survive an operation to which he had to submit. When about to undergo 
it, the last words he murmured before he became quiet under the in- 
fluence of the anaesthetic were, ' I've made up my mind, and I won't die,' 
and he didn't, to the general astonishment. After he became con- 
valescent, I used sometimes to push him about the hospital gardens in a 
bath chair, and on one occasion I remember his saying to me (apropos of 
the operation) ' You know, I've got a wife and children depending on me 
at home, and I couldn't afford to die just then.' I know that the doctors 
said that nothing but his extraordinary determination pulled him through, 
and that they never had a pluckier patient." 

Startling— almost theatric as were the climaxes of the three months' 
war, none of the episodes — many of them equally grandiose, diverted pub- 
lic interest from the vicissitudes besetting Dewey. From the first memo- 
rable intimation of his well-won immortality, the heart of the republic 
thrilled in grateful adoration over his name, his winning personality. It 
was impossible to tell enough about him. Every mail from the Orient 
was awaited with an interest as keen as we can imagine concentered on 
the Spanish galleons four centuries ago, when each bore to the descendant of 
the Caesars, the announcement of new realms, more imposing in area than the 
greatest empire of Europe. Of Dewey himself, the anecdotage was meagre. 
His life had been what Shakespeare describes Duncan — So clear in its 
high ministry, that there was nothing left to disentangle or equivocate 
over. For months he was claimed by every sect in the church, by both 
the great political parties and even the dilletante delighted in an unveri- 
fied legend, which represented the great captain as so careful in attire, 
that his comrades nicknamed him "Gentleman George." Never in the 
history of war in modern times did conquest bring such instant fruition 



WARRIOR AND STATESMAN. 



419 



to the man. Congress vied with the Navy Department — the press with 
both, to give the great sailor lofty testimonial of the republic's grateful 
recognition. Any grade within the President's gift was urged, and in- 
stantly. Indeed the unanimous voice of the country ordered a revival of 
the grade illustrated by the greatest of all sea kings — Farragut— the 
towering rank of " Admiral." For as in the army — while a man may be 
a "rear" admiral — the complete and rounded office of Admiral was 
abolished when Admiral Porter, the successor of Farragut died. 

But, Dewey in his far away station, apparently gave little heed to his 
own personal fortunes. He had at one master-stroke put himself in the 
category of the most 
admired sea captains of 
any age ; but the very 
completeness of his con- 
quest, for a time put 
upon him a role of the 
utmost difficulty. It 
was in the second func- 
tion — that of warrior 
and statesman, that the 
vigor of his mind, his 
incomparable equipoise, 
added to the immeasur- 
able esteem, — admira- 
tion of his countrymen. 
We saw him in the con- 
fusion of the conquest 
on that memorable May 
day, giving as much 
solicitous care to the 
safeguarding of the 
wretched Spanish ma- 
riners, as before the 
event he had given to 
the million details essential to the victory. Knowing the harrowing 
anxiety that his countrymen must suffer with but an inkling of the battle, 
or perhaps an untruthful version from the Spaniards, Admiral Dewey 
made an effort to overawe the Spanish Captain General Augusti, and 
by securing the surrender of the city — which was at his mercy, obtained 
access to the cable. The British consul had hurried to the fleet, so soon 




CAPTAIN -GENERAL AUGUSTI. 



AUGUSTI'S FAMOUS MESSAGE. 421 

as the destruction of Montojo was an accomplished fact, and represented 
the futility of the Spaniards attempting to resist our further onset. 

Admiral Dewey knew perfectly the powerlessness of his enemy, but he 
was diplomat enough to know that the Spaniard was not his own master. 
That the surrender of the city would never be forgiven in Madrid, until 
the walls were battered down and the " honor" of Spain vindicated. He 
therefore made use of the British official to send Captain-General Augusti 
word, that the city of Manila was in a state of blockade ; that the United 
States forces would occupy Cavite ; that if a single shot were fired at the 
fleet, he would destroy everything within range and that if he were not 
permitted to use the cable, he would cut it. The telegraph company ex- 
pressed their desire to have the cable then neutralized, but the Captain- 
General peremptorily refused the transaction. Hence, as he could not 
use the line himself, Admiral Dewey cut it, and thenceforth could com- 
municate with Washington only by way of Hong Kong, 600 miles away. 
Just as his messengers cut the wire, it was carrying to Madrid Augusti's 
famous message— that the Yankee fleet had retired "disabled." 

Without soldiers to hold the city, its seizure after bombardment would 
have been a task beyond the forces of Dewey's command. But it was 
imperative that Cavite, the strong place of the city, should be held. 
There the fleet had a base ; all sorts of supplies were stored in its ample 
magazines, its wharves could accommodate the shipping bringing stores 
and troops. When the fleet of Montojo was in extremis, a white flag had 
been hoisted over the arsenal, but it was not until Monday that the Ad- 
miral sent Commander Lamberton to take possession. 

As this officer approached the landing, on the Petrel, he saw with dis- 
may, that the white flag was no longer flying. The open places could be 
seen crowded with troops and many evidences of belligerency in the atti- 
tude of the men. Apprehensive of treachery, Commander Lamberton 
got into a launch with Commander Wood, leaving orders that if they were 
not back in an hour, to open fire on the arsenal. On landing, the two of- 
ficers asked to be conducted to the commander. This proved to be a 
Captain Sostoa, who informed Lamberton, that his Admiral had retired to 
Manila and that he, Sostoa, was in charge. " May T ask, Captain," said 
Lamberton, "why your men are under arms after yesterday's surrender?" 

"There was no surrender," replied Sostoa. 

"But," said Lamberton, "the white flag was hoisted," 

"Yes," retorted Sostoa, "but not as a surrender, only as a toKen of 
truce during which we might remove our women and children to a place 
of safety." 



422 



"YOU FIRED THE FIRST SHOT." 



"But, Captain," said Lamberton, "an arsenal is not exactly the place 
for women and children in times of war. They should have been removed 
before the bombardment began." » 

"Ah, well, yon see," said Captain Sostoa with a shrug. "You Ameri- 
cans came in to visit us at such an extremely early hour that we had no 
time to remove our women and children. If you had begun to fight at a 

less unreasonable hour " — 

" Excuse, me Cap- 
tain," said Lamberton. 
"You fired the first shot. 
But there is no use 
talking of past events, 
nor is it my place to do 
so. I am sent here as 
a representative of Com- 
modore Dewey of the 
United States Asiatic 
squadron, to take pos- 
session of this arsenal, 
and my further instruc- 
tions are that all Span- 
iards, whom I find here, 
must surrender their 
arms and persons as 
prisoners of war. If 
this is not done and 
done quickly, the en- 
gagement will be re- 
newed." 

To this Sostoa replied 
that he could do noth- 
ing without consulting his superior. 

" But we will regard you as sufficiently representative," Lamberton re- 
joined. Then the Spaniard requested that the terms of the surrender 
might be put down in writing. Lamberton glanced at his watch. Forty 
of the sixty minutes had elapsed, and in twenty more the Petrel's guns 
would be banging away, and while Lamberton and Wood knew very well 
what the issue of the new fight would be, so far as the fleet and the 
arsenal were concerned, their own predicament would be rather anomal- 
ous. Lamberton wrote down these terms : 




COMMANDER B. F. LAMBERTON. 



ONLY FIVE MINUTES LEFT. 428 

"Without further delay all Spanish officers and men must be with- 
drawn, and uo buildings or stores must be injured. As Commodore 
Dewey does not wish further hostility with the Spanish naval forces, the 
Spanish officers will be paroled, and the forces at the arsenal will deliver 
all their small arms." 

The conversation had been in Spanish, but as the conditions were writ- 
ten in English, Sostoa wanted them translated and clearly explained. 

Again Lamberton looked at his watch. Five minutes of the hour only, 
remained. 

"Excuse me Captain," he said, "but there is an absolute reason why I 
should return at once to the vessel. I will give you until noon, and if 
on that hour the white flag is not again hoisted over this arsenal, we shall 
again open fire." 

They reached the landing and the launch just in time, for as they put 
off from the steps they could see the men moving into position around 
the Petrel's guns, preparatory to opening fire. 

Captain Sostoa did not wait for noon, but hoisted the white flag at a 
quarter of eleven ; and when Lamberton returned to take possession, he 
found that the captain had marched off to Manila with every man, and 
that every man had taken his rifle. 

On the withdrawal of the Spaniards, hordes of natives who had been 
lurking in the neighboring thickets swarmed into the deserted town. 
They sacked everything accessible and portable. It was for some time a 
matter of doubt whether the mass would heed the small band of marines 
landed to hold the place. No sooner however, were the marines seen 
marching through the streets, than an extraordinary spectacle unrolled 
itself. While the natives were pillaging the arsenal and even the hospi- 
tals, the Spaniards formed in a woeful procession headed by priests and 
nurses. They came in the humble posture of condemned martyrs, mak- 
ing a last prayer to their inhuman tormentors ! The officers could not 
comprehend the meaning of the tearful embassies, until a copy of Cap- 
tain-General Augusti's proclamation was produced. It would be impos- 
sible to characterize the mingled credulity and ignorance of a people in 
compacter form : the viceroy of the Queen of Spain was not ashamed 
to put his official signature to rhodomontade which rivals the naivete of 
Don Quixote : 

"Spaniards: Between Spain and the United States of North America 

hostilities have broken out. The moment has arrived to prove to the 

world that we possess the spirit to conquer those who, pretending to be 

loyal friends, take advantage of our misfortunes and abuse our hospital- 

23 



424 RIDICULOUS BOASTING. 

ity, using means which civilized nations count unworthy and disrepu- 
table. The North American people, constituted of all the social excres- 
cences, have exhausted our patience and provoked war with their perfid- 
ious machinations, with their acts of treachery, with their outrages 
against the law of nations and international conventions. 

44 The struggle will be short and decisive. The God of victories will 
give us one as brilliant as the justice of our cause demands. Spain, which 
counts upon the sympathies of all nations, will emerge triumphantly from 
this new test, humiliating and blasting the adventurers from those states 
that, without cohesion, and without a history, offer to humanity only in- 
famous traditions, and the ungrateful spectacle of chambers in which ap- 
pear united insolence and defamation, cowardice and cynicism. 

" A squadron manned by foreigners possessing neither instruction nor 
discipline, is preparing to come to this archipelago with the ruffianly in- 
tention of robbing us of all that means life, honor, and liberty. Pretend- 
ing to be inspired by a courage, of which they are incapable, the North 
Americans undertake as an enterprise capable of realization, the substitu- 
tion of Protestantism for the Catholic religion you profess, to treat you as 
tribes refractory to civilization ; to take possession of your riches as if 
they were unacquainted with the rights of property, and to kidnap those 
persons whom they consider useful to man their ships, or to be exploited 
in agricultural or industrial labor. 

44 Vain designs ! Ridiculous boastings ! 

44 Your indomitable bravery will suffice to frustrate the attempt to carry 
them into realization. You will not allow the faith you profess to be 
made a mock of ; impious hands to be placed in the temple of the true 
God; the images you adore to be thrown down by unbelief. The aggres- 
sors shall not profane the tombs of your fathers, they shall not gratify 
their lustful passions at the cost of your wives' and daughters' honor, or 
appropriate the property that your industry has accumulated as a provi- 
sion for your old age. No : they shall not perpetrate any of the crimes 
inspired by their wickedness and covetousness, because your valor and 
patriotism will suffice to punish and abase the people that, claiming to 
be civilized and cultivated, have exterminated the natives of North Amer- 
ica, instead of bringing to them the life of civilization and of progress. 

44 Philippinos, prepare for the struggle, and united under the glorious 
Spanish flag, which is ever covered with laurels, let us fight with the con- 
viction that victory will crown our efforts, and to the calls of our enemies 
let us oppose with the decision of the Christian and the patriot, the cry 
of * Viva Espana ! ' Your general, 

44 Basilio Augustin Davila. 



A FALLEN PROPHET. 425 

« Manila, 23d April, 1898." 

The reaction among the gullible masses, offered enough of the lighter 
vein to recompense the fleet for the trials of the brief campaign. All the 
wounded were tenderly cared for, and those able to bear transportation 
were put under the charge of the Red Cross to be conveyed to Manila. 
When the long train of hurt and maimed reached that hapless town, the 
stupefaction of the Spaniards was complete. They could not be made to 
believe that the ferocious Yankees had relinquished their prey. The 
Captain-General became a fallen prophet, he issued no more proclama- 
tions, his first having been so swiftly discredited. Dewey's immense task 
began only when the civic problems to be dealt with presented them- 
selves. He had the capital of the Philippines under his guns, but with 
no soldiery to man the conquered posts, he was every hour at the mercy 
of the enemy. The creed and contention of "Sea power" as the last and 
final evidence of dominion received an interpretation that will tend to 
check the assumptions of the school that hold navies alone, as the final 
and exclusive instruments of national defence and conquest. For though 
Dewey had secured from his fleet the most complete victory ever won, 
lie was as helpless for offence, as though his guns had been ploughshares. 
It would be at least six weeks before he could count on a platoon of the 
fifteen thousand troops, promptly designated to sail to his succor. Mean- 
while, the Spaniards though fleetless, were in sufficient numbers to defend 
every mile of accessible territories. Indeed, in the hands of an enterpris- 
ing chief, the armies of Spain might have forced the fleet to remain far 
from shore, compelling the invader to get his supplies entirely from his 
base in San Francisco. 

Nor was this the least of Dewey's perplexities. Though the work of 
defending Spain's empire had been done by incompetent or dishonest 
agents, was nowhere what it should be, the nature of the ground, to a 
large extent remedied, if it did not supplement science. Before his de- 
parture Captain-General Blanco had worked with diligence to make the 
approaches to Manila difficult. Immense guns from Europe were 
mounted in modern earthworks, and strong garrisons of Spanish troops 
were brought from Spain to man them. Cavite fortress was counted 
upon as the principal stronghold. 

The town , of Cavite lies on the southeastern part of the great bay, 
twenty miles from the quarantine station at the harbor entrance, and ten 
miles from Manila. The ancient fortress, which defended the harbor 
when Draper raised the British flag over Manila, was reckoned impreg- 
nable to infantry attack. The insurgents with their bows and arrows 



426 



MANILA'S DEFENSES. 



and old muskets, have assailed it, many a time, in vain. The Fortress 
stands upon a rise of ground and looks precisely like the Morro Castle at 
the entrance of Havana harbor. On the Cavite peninsula, between the 
castle and the shore, modern earthworks were thrown up. They were 
not more than ten feet high, but thick enough to stop the heaviest pro- 
jectiles of modern guns. Behind the earthworks were mounted eight 
eight-inch cannon, built by the Krupps. They were mounted en bar- 
bette, non-disappearing carriages and comparatively close together. The 
Captain-General, had, when the fleet was destroyed, 25,000 regular troops 
and 100,000 natives, officered by Spaniards. Under ordinary circum- 
stances, these natives— bloodthirsty, profligate, licentious, fight valor- 




SPANISH EARTHWORKS AT CAVITE. 

ously— when not too indolent to march. But it was found nearly im- 
possible to discipline them— to fit them for any other than guerrilla war- 
fare. As against the enemy Spain had now provoked, however, it was 
hopeless to count on the fidelity of the Philippinos. Though the former 
Captain-General, Primo de Rivera had subdued the latest uprising, the 
apparition of the United States forces had again aroused the fiercely un- 
restful, insurgent spirit. The conquest of the rebellion and the negotia- 
tions leading to it, illustrate the moral and military decadence of Spain in 
colonial administration. 

Don Emilio Aguinaldo had been conceded the post of leader of the 
natives. He had given the Spaniards two years of incessant campaign- 
ing, of the wearing and inglorious sort known as guerilla warfare. 
Primo de Rivera, worn out with the task, finally proffered the insur- 
gents, substantially then these terms— first securing the assent of the 
chiefs by a bribe of §800,000. The treaty of peace is eloquent at the 
conduct of Spain's agents, and the venality illustrates the worthlessness 
of the so-called patriots. The terms signed embrace these provisions : 



THE PLAINT OF THE PHILIPPINOS. 427 

First. — The expulsion or secularization of the religious orders, and the 
abolition of all the official vetoes of these orders, in civil affairs. 

Second. — A general amnesty for all rebels; guarantees for their per- 
sonal security, and from the vengeance of the friars and parish priests, 
after returning to their homes. 

Third. — Radical reforms to curtail the glaring abuses in the administra- 
tion. 

Fourth. — Freedom of the press to denounce official corruption and 
blackmailing. 

Fifth. — Representation in the Spanish parliament. 

Sixth. — Abolition of the iniquitous system of secret deportation of 
political suspects. 

This compact the Governor- General had no intention of observing. No 
sooner were the chiefs, including Aguinaldo, expatriated with their bribes 
than the agreement was ignored. Then the Philippinos of influence 
carried their plaint to Madrid, and recited among other grievances, that 
the Philippine treasury was forced to pay a heavy contribution to the 
general expenses of the government at Madrid ; pay pensions to the Duke 
de Veragua and to the Marquis of Bedmar, besides those of the sultans 
and native chiefs of the islands of Sulu and Mindanao. It also provided 
for the entire cost of the Spanish consulates at Pekin, Tokio, Hong- 
Kong, Singapore, Saigon, Yokohoma, and Melbourne, for the staff and 
material for the minister of the colonies, including the purely ornamental 
council of the Philippines ; the expenses of supporting the colony of 
Fernando Po, in Africa, and all the pensions and retiring allowances of 
the civil and military employees who have served in the Philippines, 
amounting in the sum to $1,160,000 a year. More than $17,000,000 is 
the amount consigned in the Philippine budget for the year 1894, but not 
a penny is allowed for public works, highways, bridges, or public build- 
ings, and only $6,000 for scientific studies,, while the amount set apart for 
religious purposes and clergy amounts to nearly $1,400,000. This sum 
does not include the amounts paid to the clergy for baptisms, marriages, 
sale of indulgen cies, papal bulls and scapularies, which exceed the gov- 
ernment allowances. The sum of $40,000 is set apart as a subvention to 
railway companies and new projects of railways, but the college for Fran- 
ciscan monks in Spain and the transportation of priests comes in for $55,- 
000. The complaints had torn the heart of General Polajieva, who re- 
turned from his Captain-Generalcy of the islands, resolved on reform. 

Aguinaldo, on reaching neutral territory refused to share the $800,000 
bribe with his fellows, and having a quick wit, he realized from the talk 



428 WATC MAKES STRANGE BEDFELLOWS. 

of the consulates, that Spain was likely to have her hands full in dealing 
with the gigantic republic of the west. He at once took his measures to 
renew the revolt, and made use of the Spanish bribe to get his forces to- 
gether. He made himself known to the consul of the United States at 
Hong Kong, and impressed Dewey with his capacity to make a formidable 
diversion in our favor, in case we had the good fortune to crush the Span- 
ish fleet and overawe Manila. There was even a semi-official agreement, 
made in the office of the United States consul, Spencer Pratt, and several 
of the insurgent chieftains. In this conciliabule Aguinaldo described the 
causes and incidents of the last rebellion. In case of war, he explained 
the nature of the cooperation he could give, while he promised to main- 
tain order and to conduct the war on civilized principles. He covenanted 
that he would be willing to accept for Luzon, the same terms that the 
United States intended giving to Cuba. War like poverty, makes strange 
bedfellows. Dewey with the instinctive reserves of the born statesman 
accepted tacitly the volunteer aid of the nondescript insurgent who 
might, or might not, add to the embarrassments of the situation — both 
for himself and the Spanish enemy. To Aguinaldo's demand for instant 
recognition as the President of the Philippines, Dewey opposed a polite 
admonition to wait until Washington could be heard from. He supplied 
the impetuous chief with ample stores for his impatient patriots, but gave 
him no official status. A less sagacious administrator than Dewey would 
have hesitated before the spectre of a republic with from 9,000,000 to 
17,000,000 savages. 

The Spanish commanders had added to their own peril in an unwise 
attempt to transform the natives into auxiliary soldiery. The effect was, 
as might have been foreseen, the contagion of unrest, insurgency. The 
word liberty, which has an indigenous interpretation the world over, meant 
to the Philippinos, license, a state of things in which there should be no 
toil— no taxes. The Spaniards represented to them both toil and tax, and 
the rumor that a free people never toiled, who sailed the seas for riches 
and lived as they pleased in primeval forests, were on the way to drive 
the Spaniards out— very soon made the native troops a terror to the 
wretched Spanish viceroy. Under the policy of conciliation, Mauser 
rifles had been apportioned lavishly to the able-bodied nomads, and now 
with the Yankee guns covering the city, the Captain-General faced revolt 
among his auxiliaries and the bullets from the Mausers directed at the 
Spanish soldiery. No sooner was Aguinaldo back among his compatriots, 
than the Spaniards began to comprehend the extent of Dewey's blow. 
The treacherous natives, with pledges of loyalty warm on their lips, up- 



THE BELEAGURED CITY. 



429 



rose in all the rural districts where there was loot to be gained or venge- 
ance slaked. Within a radius of twenty miles of Manila, bands of con- 
verts, with prayers and protests of devotion, uprose on the priests, on the 
sparse military garrisons— butchered and pillaged, without compunction. 
Every hour brought news of outbreak and devastation— outbreaks the 




REBELS DECOYING SPANIARDS WITHIN RANGE. 

more serious that the ferocious outlaws were armed with the best guns 
and in many cases had been drilled by Spanish officers. Day after day, 
the wan watchers in the streets and outworks, had to open the gates of 
the beleaguered city to the routed garrisons of the towns outlying Manila. 
It was a part of a wise warrior to aid and abet all these troubles of the 
Manila garrison. Dewey contributed 5,000 Mauser rifles and an adequate 



430 THE WORN-OUT GARRISON. 

amount of ammunition. Aguinaldo gave out that he had used the 
greater part of the $800,000 bribe, to arm his compatriots. But a Brit- 
ish banker in Hong Kong was known to have the sum — or had it, nearly 
intact, long after the fall of Manila. 

But the Spaniards upheld their flag manfully. They were encouraged 
to withstand the rebels, knowing that it would require six weeks for the 
first of our troops to reenforce Dewey. During those weeks Spain would 
find allies — or Madrid would send a succoring fleet. The German ships 
too, coming so promptly on the scene — it was argued by the beleaguered 
garrison, was the preliminary of a joint action by European powers. But 
to escape the horrors of capture by the indescribable natives, there was 
not a man in the garrison who would not have preferred instant surrender 
to Admiral Dewey. But to hold the city, work day and night, was in- 
cumbent on the worn-out garrison. The slaughter among the officers of 
the native regiments threatened to destroy the whole army. The most 
grievous blow to Spanish pride was the uprising of one of the most 
trusted of the native regiments charged with the defence of a vital ap- 
proach. They fell upon the unsuspecting corps of Spaniards at night and 
massacred them to a man. After that, the disheartened Captain Gen- 
eral, had he not been restrained by advice conveyed through the Ger- 
mans, would have thrown himself upon Dewey's mercy. But to keep 
the garrison in heart, the work of strengthening the ancient, inner walls 
went on feverishly. The clergy raised the sum of $1,000,000 to aid the 
public treasury. The old moat, dug three hundred years ago, and grown 
over, was deepened and widened. Every gun in the interior of the 
islands that could be secured, was brought to Manila and placed to guard 
against the land attack. There was never a sign of defence against the 
sea. 

It was not, however, the Spanish commander or his foredoomed forces 
that gave Dewey uneasiness. Indeed, so far as they were concerned, he 
had no perplexity. Two discordant intrigues were making his attitude 
almost unbearable. The plots of the German and British — both on their 
fleets and in the consulates in Manila tended to embarrass Dewey's ac- 
tion. The British from the first assumed the attitude of patronizing 
good fellowship, which with them always precedes some diabolical treach- 
ery; the Germans intent on a grab, could scarcely be restrained from forc- 
ing a combat with our victorious fleet. 

The German emperor with that restless greed of the parvenu, which 
seeks recognition at all hazards, began a studiously offensive plan of 
campaign, designed to embarrass the invader and incidentally strengthen 



A MEDDLING ADMIRAL. 431 

the hopes of the Spaniards. A German fleet, fresh from the rape of a 
Chiniese port, seized in a time of peace, sailed into Manila harbor, assumed 
the air of arbiter and for a time made it very probable that the fleet that 
had destroyed Montojo would be called on to teach the bumptious med- 
dler a lesson. Admiral Diedrich, the Kaiser's commander, indeed as- 
sumed to set Dewey's prescription and regulation at defiance. By night 
and by day our ships were held in leash, as if in the neighborhood of a 
declared enemy. When these offences became too glaring, Dewey per- 
emptorily reminded the meddling German that he was going too far and 
that another outbreak would be met by a broadside of the republic's 
fleets. 

The world watched the strange spectacle with an interest swayed by 
conflicting emotions. Half of Europe hoped that the Germans would 
give loose to the arrogant disregard of the comities the empire has dis- 
played since it achieved unity. The French and Russians were eager to 
see the Kaiser involved in war with a power strong enough to bankrupt 
the new dictator ; Great Britain hoped for a collision which would give 
her a chance to pose as the friend of her " Kin beyond the sea" and in- 
cidentally break the power of the only commercial rival that was giving 
her concern. But Dewey from the hour the Spanish flag was struck 
from the fleet, to the end, met each dilemma with the ready resources of 
a trained diplomat and administrator. While maintaining vigorous 
blockade, he gave permission to a delegation of British and German mer- 
chants to remove their families to Cavite. He ordered that port to be 
made inhabitable and placed Consul Williams in Charge. The conse- 
quence was that wealthy Manila families placed all their houses at Cavite 
at Dewey's disposal. He made himself wiselj r popular among the British 
ship masters. Instead of conducting himself with the absolutism of a 
conqueror, he aided and facilitated their business so far as it did not in- 
terfere with his duties. His praise was heard in every port in the far 
east ; when he was in need of coal, these ship masters sold him 3.000 
tons, as much from good will as a desire to do a good stroke of business. 
Manila papers, all of which were under government control, tried to 
keep up the Spanish courage by all sorts of fanciful and sensational re- 
ports. They maintained that the Baltimore was so damaged in the bat- 
tle that the Admiral had decided to scuttle her. One issue contained a 
proclamation from the Archbishop, stating that four Spanish battleships 
were on their way out, and that God had informed him that in the next 
engagement, the armies of the most Christian Spain would be victorious! 

Every incoming vessel brought rumors of unrest to the sorely tried 



432 DELIBERATE INFRINGEMENT. 

Admiral, as the days of waiting dragged heavily onward. Spain was 
gathering her greatest fleet to despatch through the Suez Canal to exter- 
minate the audacious invader. As the rumors of Spanish recrudescence 
became more tangible, the insolent and menacing provocation of the Ger- 
man marplot passed from the tentative to the actual. As lord by con- 
quest of Manila waters, Admiral Dewey established regulations— safe- 
guarding his fleet. Among other prescriptions, it was directed that no 
craft should move about the bay after dark, without permission of the 
proper authority. This rule is of universal application under such cir- 
cumstances. All the navies and fleets in Manila harbor complied scru- 
pulously with the requirement, save the Germans. They insisted in sail- 
ing their launches, and pleasure boats and what not, through the sentinel 
ships of Dewey's fleet, without a word of precaution. When this was 
seen to be a deliberate infringement of his order, Admiral Dewey took 
action. One night, a German launch was discovered prowling about the 
bay. A searchlight was turned upon it, and for over an hour the boat 
was kept under the convicting glare, while its actions were closely scru- 
tinized. Finally Admiral Dewey sent a boat to the launch, and asked, in 
a manner that admitted of no misunderstanding, that there be no move- 
ment of boats or vessels in the bay at night, without his knowledge. 

Hard by Manila, the Spaniards for some unknown purpose, early in 
July, began to uprear fortifications on a point of strategic value, known as 
Isla Grande. The point commands a sheet of water known as Subig 
Bay, which the German " War lord," was understood to covet. The in- 
surgent leader asked Admiral Dewey for permission to capture the point. 
This was readily accorded. But when the storming party reached the 
island, they found the German warship Irene in the bay, and they 
reported at once to the Admiral that she refused to permit them to attack 
the Spaniards. Admiral Dewey despatched the gunboat Concord and the 
cruiser Raleigh to investigate the situation. They were instructed to 
take the island in face of the Irene, if necessary, and turn it over to the 
insurgents. When they entered Subig Bay, they saw the Irene there, 
but as soon as she saw them she got under way and put back to Cavite. 
The Spanish garrison on the island surrendered to our warships, without 
making a fight. This incident made a grave and lasting impression on 
the people of the republic. No sooner had the report reached Germany 
than the Cabinet recognized the gravity of the situation. Semi-official 
apologies were published in the German presses, and personages of author- 
ity made haste to explain that it was a mere accident. But there was 
not a man in this country who did not comprehend and resent the in- 



RUSSIA IN CLOSE AMITY. 4dS 

science of the German Admiral. The merest trifle would have brought 
the two peoples to a rupture. Meanwhile, the diplomatic agencies were 
aglow with rumors of underhand treaties between Spain and the Kaiser, 
for the transfer of Philippine sovereignty to the restless Hohenzollern. 
That monarch, itching for the wonderment of the world, was known to 
aspire to the sea-dominion of Great Britian. He had in profound peace, 
without a word of warning, sent a fleet to the harbor of Kion Chon and 
piratically demanded its cession. He had begun pourparlers for the 
seizure of Delagoa Bay, the Portuguese haven, nearest the Transvaal re- 
public, and was only stayed by the armament of an imposing British 
squadron. In the Pacific, it was known that he was restive under the 
arrangement forced upon him for the nominal autonomy of the Samoan 
islands ; he coveted the exclusive sovereignty. In fact, there is nothing 
territorial that the newfangled German empire does not covet, since the 
momentary syncope of France permitted the abstraction of the old 
Roman provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, as well as the Rhine frontiers; 
yet the plot was in conception and detail the machination of British emissa- 
ries, who made it known in every chancellery in Europe, that Britain saw 
with distrust, the republic expelling the sovereignty of Spain, from her 
American possessions. 

To the Russian chancellor, the British made no secret that the republic 
had grown presumptuous — for no sooner were Spain driven out, than the 
interloping democracy would demand the withdrawal of France and 
Britain herself. But the Russians were no longer interested in trans- 
atlantic colonies. They had sold their only possession to the republic — 
Alaska, and historically they were bound in the closest amity with the 
United States. France was lured by proffers, to complete the Panama 
canal, and thus free Europe of the menace of a water way under the sole 
control of the Washington Cabinet. France was perfectly willing to join 
in a remonstrance against pushing Spain to the wall ; untold millions of 
French money are invested in Spanish securities — further than that the 
sagacious French statesmen would not go a step. But their willingness to 
go thus far, was at once seized by British intriguers, to make it appear 
that our oldest and only real friend on the continent, was willing to join 
Europe in balking our action. Taking his cue from the home plotters, 
the British Admiral at Manila made himself the shadow of the Yankee 
Admiral, while preserving the closest intimacy with the German, Diedrich. 
Coincidentally with this, the British Admiral found means to have the 
word cabled to London — for Yankee consumption, that the German com- 
mander, having asked him, what he would do, if the two fleets, Dewey's 



434 



A LIE WELL TOLD. 



and the Kaiser's should come to blows — he, the Briton had replied, " Oh, 
that Admiral Dewey and I keep to ourselves " Of course the inference 
to be drawn is. that Dewey had invoked the Briton's protection and that 
the Queen's fleet would have been found aligned with the Yankees, if 
the German's bumptiousness had forced Dewey to depart from his studi- 
ous self-constraint. 

The incident is another illustration of the inexpugnable perfidy of the 
Briton in office. Admiral Dewey never dreamed of taking a Briton into 
his confidence ; never dreamed of calling upon the inborn, hereditary 
enemy of the republic to aid him. For, side by side with the armada that 
had conquered Spain, was the modest squadron of the French republic, 
and there was not a man on the ships that would not have died and 
gladly died for the chance to fire one volley at the hated black and 
yellow flag of the parvenu power that despoiled France in 1870-1. Yet 
a lie well told is as effective as the truth. The millions in this country 
received the British fable and they believe it to this day, and will prob- 
ably believe it until the day comes, when British fleets are thundering 
in the harbors of New York and Boston. 




OFF DUTY. 



PART IT. 



DEWEY'S dazzling work at Manila found the administration totally 
unprepared to cooperate with him. This was, and is, no reflection 
upon our sorely-tried administrative system. It was a hope, rather than 
a trust, that Dewey might capture or destroy the military forces of Spain 
in the vast Oriental empire known as the Philippines. The most that 
was expected was, that his fleet might hold a considerable number of the 
Spanish vessels in the far eastern seas, thereby lessening the task involved 
in the submission of Cuba 
and the enemy's posses- 
sions in the Antilles. The 
President had cabled 
Dewey to destroy the Ma- 
nila squadron, but neither 
the executive nor his ac- 
complished naval secre- 
tary, Governor Long, 
hoped for more than a 
valorous combat and the 
blockade of the Spanish 
fleet in the roadstead of 
Manila. When, therefore, 
Dewey's laconic report 
came to Washington, say- 
ing simply, " I have obeyed 
my orders," there was 
something like a panic of 
delight in high places. 
With the Spanish fleet 
destroyed, a prize more 
glittering than fortune had 
ever thrown in the grasp of conquering ambition, offered itself to the 
administration. In an instant, " The war of humanity " was subtl} 7 
changed into a struggle with conscience, the teaching of religion, the 
comities of national honor. For, the instant the Manila result was real- 
ized by the Cabinet at Madrid, the word was sent out that Spain sue- 

(435) 










CAPTAIN AUNON. 
Spanish Minister of Marine. 



436 REGULARS FOR DEPENDENCE. 

climbed, that she was ready to conform to the insolent and unprecedented 
mandate of the United States Congress. 

But, as a lie breeds a lie, a false pretense breeds a brood of pretenses 
Howsoever much the President might desire peace, he dared not for an 
instant, accept it. The famine of "glory" had not been glutted, the 
armed quarter million had not heard the Mauser; the fleets of the At- 
lantic had not demonstrated that they were the inheritors of Paul Jones, 
Decatur, Bainbridge, and Farragut ; the regiments so impulsively formed 
in every state, had not shown that they were of the stuff that made the 
myriads of the Civil War's glories. No president, no cabinet, no human 
agency, dared accept the piteous hints of the wretched Spaniard. There 
must be more destruction, more death, there iaiist be a siege and battle 
in Cuba to justify the war, so recklessly, so needlessly— to my mind, so 
wickedly forced upon the helpless. The governing councils of Wash- 
ington had counted only on a campaign in Cuba. To that end the lim- 
ited number of troops called out seemed ample ; was ample. For the 
more blatherskite f omen tors of this war, knew that, when the worst 
came to the worst, our dependence must be placed upon the Regulars. 
I have been a volunteer in the armies of the republic and I can do im- 
partial justice to the generous and noble millions who enlist, but, they are 
no more to be compared with Regular soldiery in an immediate crisis, 
than an ox is to be compared with a racer. Yet, it is a mere question of 
time when the volunteer is able to do all that the Regular is expected to 
do. It took two years and more, during the Civil War, to make our vol- 
unteers as trustworthy as the Regulars, but after the two years, the vol- 
unteers were Regulars. They stood and died in the seven days' battles; 
they marched and died in the hideous Pope debacle ; in the end they 
were the army. But it cost years and it cost millions to make 100,000 
volunteers equal to 10,000 Regulars. 

Of all that is venerable in the republic it is the Regular army that takes 
precedence. A golden chord of the true glory that sanctifies fame, at- 
taches their ranks with the sacred symbols of Washington's victories, 
links them with every deed of emprise that redounds to the credit of the 
republic, and makes them, though comparatively few in numbers, the 
body best beloved and therefore the most implicitly reverenced tradition 
in the republic. Officered by a corps of men who would be scholastic 
exemplars in any other system, they have above all bodies serving the 
state, dedicated to war, illustrated the meaning of the milites of the early 
Roman civilization, when the soldier was the perfect paragon of the citi- 
zen. From the plains of Saratoga to the shambles of Yorktown, the Reg- 



OMITTED FROM POPULAR PLAUDITS. 437 

ulars have embodied the peculiar characteristics that differentiate our 
standing army from all others. They are first, and above all, instruments 
of the law. In obedience, bravery, unmurmuring compliance with the 
edicts of authority, they are all that Brutus dreamed, that Washington 
meditated. Where the Regular army operates, there the work is done 
systematically ; officered by men, every one of whom is capable of admin- 
istering the government of a free people, this extraordinary body has been 
the shield and defender of a republic which has grown from 1,500,000 to 
70,000,000. It is because they perform their allotted task so modestly, 
because they are so fastidiously observant of law and precedent, that their 
virtues, their glory, even, is, if not unknown, but vaguely appreciated. 
In the Civil War they were but a handful, yet their virtues impregnated 
the 2,000,000 who fought the colossal fight ; on any battlefield, when it 
was known that the Regulars were present, the volunteers were tenfold 
the force they would have been by themselves. Were an army in straits, 
were a charge to be met, were a forlorn hope to be undertaken, the pres- 
ence, the voice of a Regular troop was equal to a reinforcement of un- 
numbered battalions. Yet, like the sunlight, like the beneficent forces of 
nature, the Regulars were omitted from the popular plaudits, because it 
seemed of course they should be equal to the utmost demanded — like light, 
or fire, or air. They have been, and they are, 25,000 ; that is enough. 
More would make us their slaves, that number makes us their adorers. 
We never shall have need for more. Were they more they would be- 
come the janissaries of the republic. They would lose their modesty, they 
would lose their character ; they would become the instruments of the 
base, the designing, they would serve the miscreants who fatten on the 
name of "patriot" to despoil the community. They would become what 
is so easy for the military to become, the instrument of ambition, greed — 
war. We have no need of war. We covet nothing beyond our own 
borders, that is, the sane majority do not. Within our own boundaries 
we have all that a millionfold more in numbers than we are, need. If at 
a future time the republic needs more, that is a matter for the future to 
decide, and in that future, it is reasonable to hope that there will be no 
such abhorrent barbarism as war, to veil greed or ambition. 

The President and his military advisers hesitated before the painful 
dilemma. It would be such a superb spectacle to reduce a far away, an 
enchanting empire of romance. To throttle Spain at our own doors and 
at the same time despoil her of the last vestiges of her greatness, in 
the fabled isles of the East. Coincidently, the jingo press broke into 
vociferous demands for "expansion." Shallow politicians divining all 



438 DEMAND FOR "EXPANSION." 

that is mean and covetous in human nature, hurried to put themselves on 
•'record." Providence, the Almighty, all the deities, that the depraved 
call upon when an especially evil end is advocated, were pointed out as 
favoring our seizure of an empire, that had no more to do with our de- 
clared purpose than Bohemia in Austria, or Poland, the lacerated victim 
of the " humanitarian " process of Russia, Prussia or Austria. It was 
finally decided that a very considerable portion of the army raised to 
implant "civilization" in Cuba, should be diverted to reclaiming the 
empire of the Philippines from the nerveless grasp of Spain. The vision 
of a prodigious conquest ; the fascination of colonies greater in extent 
than Britain had seized, dazzled a certain potential segment of the people, 
and the President — yielding to the clamor of the press and the insidious 
beseechings of the truculent — ordered half the available forces to Manila. 
First 15,000 men were named as ample, but as European complications 
fomented by the Briton began to be bruited, this number was doubled. 
Finally, the commander of the forces impressed with the vociferations of 
the jingo press, declared that he could not do the work expected under 
50,000 men ! 

General Wesley Merritt, a soldier of approved capacity was designated 
for the post of Captain General of the coveted empire. He sailed with 
the conviction that he was expected to add the 2,000 islands of the 
Philippine groups to the territory of the republic. He had barely touched 
the soil of Luzon when he again demanded 50,000 soldiers to hold 
Dewey's conquest and fulfil the expectations of the jingo journals. The 
flower of the army, both regulars and volunteers accompanied General 
Merritt. It required weary weeks to gather them together, and it 
required still wearier weeks to traverse the immense waste of waters 
between San Francisco and Manila. The army with this novel com- 
mission, set out from San Francisco in straggling detachments. 

But there were not enough Regulars to fight the spectacular battles 
decreed in Cuba, and at the same time supplement Dewey's victorious 
squadrons. General Miles, f he Commander-in-Chief, had from the first 
advised an autumn campa'^n in Cuba. It was too late when Congress 
ordered war, to expedite forces to the island in time to escape the fever 
season, the torrential summer rains. But the agencies ordering the war 
had taken no account of difficulties. The Morgans, Forakers, and 
Thurstons, had translated the artifices of the innumerable juntas into 
intolerable wrongs, that needed instant righting. The President knew 
that a postponement until autumn would imperil the administration — 
even the war itself. Yet Lincoln encountered that; the war that Seward 




Major-General Wesley Merritt. 



TO SUCCOR DEWEY. 441 

announced would end in ninety days, went on in ever increasing volume 
for five years. Hence there was doubt and misgiving over the resolution 
to be taken. The Regulars could not be spared from Cuba — or the bulk 
of them ; they were too precious to commit to the long voyage between 
San Francisco and Manila — for the month required to carry them thither, 
might be vital, in Cuba. Nor would an instant levy of 500,000 volunteers 
resolve the problem. Then too, the imperial spirit had not yet become the 
cry of any considerable number of journals. Clergymen had not approved 
it, though a number of them did in time, after the jingo journals had pre- 
pared the way. But the case was urgent. If not succored, Dewey might 
find himself confronted by the last great fleet of Spain and an army equal 
to our entire force. 

On the last day of June, the anxious squadron and its sorely tried 
commander, saw the national flag flying over an imposing flotilla. The 
long expected succor had come. But, though the national administration 
had strained all the available appliances of the departments to their 
utmost, this first quota seemed almost ludicrously inadequate to the 
work contemplated. Slight however as the force was, about 3,000 men, 
they relieved the pressure on the fleet. While they were not equal to 
forcing an action likely to result in the capture of Manila, they served 
amply to garrison Cavite and even to hold the over-demonstrative natives 
in check. For in the antipodes, as in Cuba, the native from the first 
became the crucial complexity. Little had been known of the " Philip- 
pinos " or their fitness for self-rule. With neither schools, journals nor 
literature, it was impossible to regard seriously the outbreaks of the 
shifty leaders, as in any sense a reflex of a wide spread unrest with the 
civic institutions of Spain. Nor was the conduct of Aguinaldo the brag- 
gadocio leader, calculated to reassure a clear-headed, scrupulously honor- 
able executive like Dewey. Aguinaldo, as has been seen, had compacted 
with the Spanish Captain-General, to swallow his aspirations for reformed 
administration or liberty, and had taken himself out of the islands. But 
with the definite prospect of the immense pillage the city of Manila 
offered, by the aid of the United States forces, the cohorts of insurgents 
again became cohesive ; Dewey was barely master of the Manila waters, 
when immense numbers of the nomads swarmed about the environs of 
the city — ready to enter, so soon as the Spanish forces were worn out. 

To the armies and navies warring, as Congress declared, for "hu- 
manity " nothing could be more repulsive than a coparceny with such a 
leader and such hordes. For Aguinaldo was, and is of the most repellent 
type of the manumitted, servile races. Born in the utmost obscuritv, of 
24 



442 EVIL AND CORRUPTION. 

part Spanish and half-breed parents, fortune placed him as a child, with 
a kindly priest who gave him humane treatment, opportunity to educate 
himself and contact with whatever of refinement, the primitive society of 
the islands afforded. He was quick of wit, diligent in a spasmodic way, 
incorrigibly deceitful and ignobly —enviously— aspiring. He saw the 
wrongs and oppressions put upon his people, but he saw them as wrongs 
and oppressions, because he was not permitted to be of the governing 
caste. Aguinaldo studied medicine, mixed with the educated ranks of 
the society about him, but all time kept up close confraternal relations 
with the Philippine masses. He saw something of the world outside the 
island empire where he was born. He is said to have passed years in 
wandering through China and Japan. He became indoctrinated with 
his value to himself, in Hong Kong, where British emissaries aroused him 
to the opportunities for leadership in the Philippines. 

The islands administered by viceroys, who regarded the billet very much 
as a Klondiker his exile in the portals of eternal frost and snow, has been 
consistently an evil and corrupt government. Every Captain-General 
counted on returning to Spain rich, and he generally did so. The mur- 
murs of the oppressed with difficulty reached the metropolitan, and when 
they did, the needs of party, if not the indifference of the government 
stifled all outcry, all redress. Aguinaldo saw all this ; he saw the restive- 
ness of even the unofficial Spaniard, and he went to work to prepare a 
dictatorship for himself. That is, he proposed to make himself a power 
to be counted with. He had no conception of government, beyond the 
simplest form of savage absolutism. He meant to get the millions be- 
hind him, and then demand a share in the plunder. He is in his twenty- 
eighth year now, and since his compatriots adopted him as their exponent 
and idol, he has given every sign of the selfish, cruel, ineradicable savagery 
born in him. Rivals or marplots, he treats as the Sultans of Turkey 
treated possible aspirants to the throne. He has a face, hard as Nero's, 
and morals that would shame a Fijian. He has the extraordinary 
audacity of his race— a race as I have before shown, taught that death is 
the price of paradise, if given up in the cause of Mahomet. 

Aguinaldo like all Philippinos associated with the Spaniards, is a 
Catholic, but his revolt is primarily against the oppressive pervasive 
influence of the religious orders. His most eminent rival, Atachio, said 
to be a man of lofty views and self-denying integrity, incurred Aguinaldo's 
suspicion, because he began to share the adulation the people had first 
paid the ex-valet. There was a quarrel between the two over the $800, 
000 bribe, and Atachio mysteriously disappeared. It was really the 



A BOUFFE DECLARATION. 443 

generalship of Atachio that wore out the corruptly led Spaniards in the 
last revolution ; it was the popular recognition of this that made the 
unfortunate man one too many in the band of clever adventurers 
Aguinaldo has brought about him. No sooner, however, is one of his 
adlati distinguished in the favor of the Philippinos, than he is sent far 
away on a pretended mission, and once gone, his friends count him as 
dead. When this extraordinary young man was the body servant of his 
priestly patron, he was known simply as Emilio. Now he is obsequiously 
addressed as " Don Emilio Aguinaldo y Faury." The man and the 
system, or rather the bouffe regime he would conduct, may be best 
judged from one of the first documents issued on the declaration of 
independence of the Philippines : 

Don Emilio Aguinaldo y Faury, 

" President of the Revolutionary Government of the Philippines and General- 
in-Chief of its Army: 

" In conformity with the precepts in the decree of this Government, dated 
June 23, ult., and the instructions which accompanied it, I proclaim as 
follows : 

" Article 1. Seiior Don Baldomero Aguinaldo is appointed Secretary of War 
and Public Works ; Seiior Don Leandro Ibarra, Secretary of the Interior and 
branches comprehended therein ; Seiior Don Mariani Trias, Secretary of the 
Treasury and the annexed branches. 

" The conduct of the Bureau of Foreign Relations, Marine and Commerce 
will be in charge provisionally, for the present, of the Presidency, until there is 
appointed a Secretary who is considered more apt. 

" Article 2. The gentlemen named will assume charge of their respective 
offices, previously having solemnly taken, on the day designated for that pur- 
pose by the President, the following oath : ' I swear by God and my honor to 
carry out the laws and decisions and to fulfil faithfully the duty I voluntarily 
accept, under the penalties established for the same. So may it be.' 

" This oath will be taken before the President and the dignitaries who are 
invited for this solemn act, the interested person placing his right hand on the 
New Testament. 

" Article 3. The directors and chiefs of provinces and villages, on receiving 
their respective titles, will take a similar oath before the President and the 
Secretaries of the Government. 

" The prominent counsellors, as well as the delegates and subchiefs, will take 
the oath before the chief of the province and the chiefs of villages previously 
invited to the solemn act. 

" Article 4. In the reports and similar documents presented to the author- 
ities and in official correspondence there will be employed before the name of 



444 WHIMSICAL PRANKS. 

the official the title ' Senor ' or ' Maguinor ' (Tagalo), according to the character 
and importance of the same. When the official is not so addressed the per- 
sonal title ' Usted ' will be used when directed to an inferior or an equal, but 
when addressed to a superior the title ' Xorot ros ' will be employed. 

"Article 5. The Secretaries are empowered to sign ' by order of the Presi- 
dent ' such resolutions or decisions as are of small importance and those which 
expediency requires should be put into effect, but final decrees and resolutions 
will be confirmed by the President and the Secretary. 

" Article 6. The chiefs of provinces are permitted to use as distinctive of 
their office a cane with gold head and silver tassels. On the upper part of the 
cane there will be engraved a sun and three stars. 

" The chiefs of villages may carry a similar cane, but with black tassels. The 
subchiefs also may carry a cane with silver head and red tassels. 

" The provincial counsellors are authorized to wear a triangular badge of 
gold, pendent from a collar and a chain of the same metal ; on the badge there 
shall appear an engraved sun and three stars. The delegates will wear a 
similar badge, but of silver ; also the chain. 

" Article 7. The President will wear as a distinctive mark a collar of gold 
from which depends a badge similar to those heretofore described, and also a 
whistle of gold. The Secretaries will wear a similar collar with the badge, and 
the directors, also, but of silver. 

" The President will carry also a cane with head and tassels of gold. 

" Dated at Bakor, July 5, 1898. 

" Emilio Aguinaldo, 

" The President of the Revolutionary Government." 

No sooner was he recognized as an auxiliary, by Admiral Dewey, than 
he began pranks in authority and arrogance, as whimsically droll, if it 
were not for the dangers involved, as the grotesqueries of the German 
war lord. In fact, the two characters are amazingly alike, making allow- 
ance for the more civilizing restraints that the German Kaiser sometimes 
acknowledges. From the moment he had gathered his nondescript rabble 
about Manila, he began to treat as equal to equal, with the United States 
commander. When the troops reached Cavite he exacted more ceremony 
in the simplest administrative details than is usual in the haughty court 
of Austria. General Anderson, having business of an urgent nature, 
sent an aide-de-camp to request certain accommodations for the newly 
arrived troops. Aguinaldo ; enthroned in one of the palaces of the suburb 
where his motley hordes awaited the looting of the great city, kept the 
officer in attendance an unseemly time and then sent word that he could 
not be disturbed — he was asleep! Innumerable perversities of this sort 
finally brought about the total ignoring of his presence and refusal to 



HUNGERIMu FOR MANILA. 



445 



permit his cooperation in the meditated attack. Then Aguinaldo set 
about reducing Manila with his own forces. The Spanish, without sup 
plies in all the surrounding country, with roads in possession of in- 
numerable bands of natives, were day after day forced to narrow their 
defensive lines until nothing was left them to defend save the venerable 
walls. Aguinaldo prepared to storm these, but the Spaniards gave no 
sign of distrusting their ability to hold the city — until the army of the 
republic should be in force enough, to make a surrender to them. From the 
first, as a matter of history that was really all the Spanish commander de- 
layed, for — that is to say, so soon as he realized that Spain was impotent 
to send a succoring fleet and an army. 

To circumvent, this Aguinaldo displayed an energy that at times seemed 
superhuman. He gathered from the 
captured places, overrun by the sheer 
numbers of his followers, all the ar- 
tillery that was capable of firing. He 
infused into his tatterdemalion ranks, 
the enthusiasm of the crusaders, and 
in scores of contests actually defeated 
the better-armed and disciplined hosts 
of Spain. He hungered to get hold 
of Manila, if only long enough to lay //, 
his hands on the city's riches, and 
in a vague way to make terms with 
the United States, when the fate of' 
the Philippines came up for settle- 
ment. There were vigorous protests 
made to the Cabinet, when the lati- 
tude given Aguinaldo was made 
known — for the character of this re- 
pulsive miscreant, has been under- 
stood by many men of standing in 

this country who have had dealings with the Philippines. Nor has the ad- 
ministration made any mistake in the marplot, events thrust upon Dewev. 
That officer did as all commanders do in war. He made use of Aguinaldo, 
as he would made use of a fire ship, or dynamite — knowing that there 
were chances that both might injure his own fleet. This must always be 
done in war. No doubt sensitive Britons hated to hold converse with 
Benedict Arnold, but as he could benefit British interests, he was made 
much of. In the case of Aguinaldo, however, other influences were at work. 




'Pfy 

GENERAL ATACHIO. 



446 



THE INSURGENT LEADER. 




DON EMILTO AGUINALDO Y FAURY. 
Leader of the Philippine Insurgents and President of the Revolutionary Government. 



A BRITISH GO-BETWEEN. 447 

The ignoble system or lack of system, of our consular service, had 
placed in the consulate at Hong Kong a grotesque diplomats from the 
western plains, who conceived a violent admiration for the unqualifiable 
Aguinaldo. This personage — Wildman by name, schemed by day and 
meditated by night, ways and means to make Aguinaldo a persona grata 
to Dewey. But while recognizing Aguinaldo's availability as a factor in 
holding Manila until troops were at hand, Admiral Dewey never gave the 
Philippine adventurer the slightest official recognition. He permitted 
him to help himself to the army stores in the captured arsenal in Cavite, 
but that in no sense bound the United States government. Underneath 
the Aguinaldo pretensions, however, was discernible the hand of British 
intrigue. That power, knowing that it would be impossible for a re- 
public to undertake the compulsory "' civilization " of such tribes as make 
up the Philippines, determined from the first that we should be gulled 
into assuming a protectorate. Spain once expelled, the British would in- 
herit the empire so soon as the calmer judgment of the people of the 
United States brought jingoism and spoliation to a halt. Aguinaldo has 
been coached in every step by a British diplomat, one Bray, who brought 
about meetings of Aguinaldo and his ineffable company, in the United 
States consulate at Hong Kong. It was this British go-between, who 
vouched for Auginaldo conducting the war on " Christian principles," if 
Dewey would entrust him with arms and an auxiliary role in the con- 
quest of Manila. Admiral Dewey seems to have required but a few days 
experience with the insurgent chief to penetrate his motives, for it is plain 
from every act since the destruction of the Manila fleet, that he merely 
tolerated the agent of British greed. Dewey and his staff kept up a 
diligent inquiiy, pending the arrival of the army — to ascertain exactly 
what manner of folk Aguinaldo and his unqualifiable confidants rep- 
resented. 

The sober citizen of the republic, deafened by the clamor of the jingo 
shriekers, would be surprised to see with the eyes of flesh, the indescribable 
hordes we are asked to make part of our democratic system. A Parish 
priest not far from Cavite, bears testimony that, after forty years' ministry 
among the islanders, they are to him an absolutely incomprehensible race, 
to whom no known rules of civilization or savagery had the smallest ap- 
plication. "They are perversely unreliable; they will serve you faith- 
fully for twenty years and then commit some such horrible crime as 
delivering over your house and family to brigands. They are patient, 
sober, and even honest servants usually, but at any moment they may 
break out and, joining a band of robbers, pillage your house. If you tax 



448 NEVER FORGET AN INJURY. 

them with the crime they are not abashed, but disclaim all responsibility, 
answering, ' Seuor, my head was hot,' which they consider sufficient ex 
cuse. They will never confess to a misdeed voluntarily. They will 
submit to a beating without a murmur, if they think it is deserved, and 
bear no malice ; but if they consider the punishment unjust, they will 
seek the first opportunity for revenging themselves. They never forgive 
and never forget an injury, but they cherish no memory of kindness. 
Generosity they regard as a weakness. If you give them anything un- 
sought they consider you a fool and treat you accordingly. They are 
always asking favors, though never directly. Borrowing they think no 
shame, but they never repudiate their debts. On the other hand they 
never pay back voluntarily, and if taxed with their dishonesty, look sur- 
prised and say, ' Senor, j^ou never asked for it.' If you pay a man 
twenty cents for a service he will be contented ; if you pay him thirty 
cents he will grumble. They have no word for thank you, in their lan- 
guage, nor a conception of what the phrase implies. They have no 
notion of charity, never helping one another excepting in the case of rel- 
atives ; but they acknowledge even the remotest tie of relationship. If 
treated badly, they make good servants and never grumble ; if treated 
kindly they are lost, and go to the bad. They never stick to an occupa- 
tion but are ready to turn their hands to anything. They are jacks-of-all- 
trades and good at none. They are brave against equals, if led by supe- 
riors, but a real or fancied superiority in the foe causes them to abandon 
all hope. They do not know the meaning of hospitality. They will do 
what you tell them if you tell them often enough, but they will never do 
anything of their own accord. They will answer questions but never 
volunteer information. They will let your horse die for want of feed and 
never tell you that the supply has given out. They are confirmed liars, 
and show only surprise when found out. They are good husbands though 
intensely jealous; but they do not worry about the conduct of their 
daughters or even their wives, previous to marriage. They have no am- 
bition and no ideas of order or economy, but in the matter of cleanliness 
they are superior to all the inhabitants of the far East save the 
Japanese." 

The first detachment arrived on June 30th, a month, to a day, after the 
naval combat. The second instalment of troops reached the rendezvous 
on the 16th of June — making the army of invasion 6,000 men. General 
Anderson, the first commander to reach the goal, was very desirous of at- 
tacking at once and capturing Manila before the advent of General Mer- 
ritt. But Admiral Dewey who had bided his time for six weeks, vetoed 



ATHIRST FOR GLORY. 449 

this vivacity. General Merritt bore the government's instruction. It 
was he, alone, who could assume the responsibility of taking the city. As to 
that, Dewey could have taken it, any time, with a three hours' bombardment. 
His only embarrassment was to keep the hideous hordes of Aguinaldo 
from complicating matters by unfurling the pirate flag over the palace of 
the viceroys. General Anderson, athirst for glory, with a soldier's con- 
tempt for diplomacy, insisted on pushing forward. A council, described 
as "acrimonious " ensued between the sagacious Dewey and the impetu- 
ous general. Dewey impressed upon the eager soldier that it was un- 
necessary for him to worry about taking the city, as the fleet could do it 
in three hours whenever desired; but that he, Dewey, proposed to wait 
for Merritt, unless some unexpected circumstance should force him to 
action, such as the partial capture of the city by Aguinaldo. This was 
something he did not concern himself much about, as no military man 
believed it possible for Aguinaldo to achieve that feat. Even the soldiers 
of the United States could not do it, without the aid of the fleet, for the 
city proper was enclosed by a high stone wall, well mounted with cannon, 
and surrounded by a broad moat, with an open space of half a mile for 
troops to advance to the attack, exposed to fire of cannon and magazine 
guns. It would be a great slaughter, and the best troops in the world 
might well hesitate to make the assault. With Dewey taking this atti- 
tude, General Anderson was forced to wait. 

The fateful resolution taken, all the troops summoned from the ex- 
treme Western states were ordered to rendezvous at San Francisco. 
General Merritt elaborated his plans with the Cabinet folk in Washing- 
ton, and the country rested in almost childlike expectation. It was all so 
unreal, so utterly outside of everything contemplated in our social com- 
pact, that for the moment — for many a week and month, the voice of the 
potential majority remained as if stifled. Then we began to see the sharp 
differences that distinguish wars of impulse and wars of aggression. 
Steamers could not be procured. The companies possessed of the craft 
fitted for the needs of the government, thought the opportunity too good 
to miss. The public treasury became the prey of the soulless, the greedy. 
The departments in need, were made the sport of "gangs" and "pulls" 
and what not, arising from our jocosely irresponsible political system. For 
vessels that the owners would consider themselves well paid at $150 per 
diem the government was engaged to pay 11,500. And so on to the least 
of the requirements. The sordid and the repulsive stand out in pain- 
ful contrast in all wars, but there seemed some magnetic something 
somewhere in Washington, that stimulated the Shylock spirit wher- 



450 MISTAKES OF MANAGEMENT. 

ever the needs of the government pressed. Naturally the home youth 
of the west were enchanted with the promise of adventure. The 
entire bone and sinew of the vast Pacific Coast could have been enlisted 
for the romantic perils of the cruise to Manila. But when the dull de- 
tails of camp and ship came on, there was a revulsion. I can do no 
better service to the reader than copy a letter in extenso written by a 
practiced observer who accompanied one of the expeditions, and from 
careful examination this picture stands as a mirror of all: 

" Was ever an officer's mess more badly supplied than this one on 
board the China? Generosity and patriotism are not the leading char- 
acteristics of the Pacific Mail Company. The food we had would dis- 
grace the worst sailor's boarding house. The meat served was so bad 
that at our universal complaint 6,000 pounds were dumped overboard to 
poison the fishes, and the steward was forced to buy from the United 
States commissary department. 

" The cooking was bad, the service wretched, the quantity limited, and 
this on board the China, noted on ordinary trips as having the best table 
on the Pacific. After charging one thousand five hundred dollars a day 
for the use of the ship, it was impudent to ask the officers 1150 a day for 
food unfit for convicts. Fifty officers on board signed a complaint, refus- 
ing to pay more than one dollar a day — the price charged on the Ze- 
landia, where the food was excellent and ice was furnished throughout 
the journey. The enervating effect of the climate is making itself felt 
on the most energetic, and the motto of the ship is fast becoming, ' Never 
do to-day what you can just as well put off until to-morrow.' 

" In spite of all the difficulties in the way of this expedition, it has so 
far been remarkably successful. For instance, although among the volun- 
teers it has been almost impossible to keep quarters clean, on account of 
lack of discipline and the general inexperience of the officers, still the 
health of the men has been excellent, and only four deaths have occurred 
in all— one on the Zelandia, two on the Colon, and one on the China. 
The private who died on the China was really a victim of one of the in- 
numerable mistakes of management by our government in the details of 
this war. He was refused on medical examination, but was passed over 
the heads of the doctors by authorized enlistment from Washington ! 

"Examples of mismanagement might be indefinitely multiplied. For 
instance, the Gatling guns sent on board are of the type of 1865. The 
first one tried in practice the other day, discharged with barrels in every 
position but the right one, and the bullets struck against portions of the 
carriage and went flying about the deck. Several men were wounded 



POLITICAL APPOINTMENTS. 451 

slightly. Another instance is the presence on the ship of a sutler, with 
all his goods. Sutlers have been abolished by law, and yet this man, 
brother of a representative in Congress, succeeded in shoving himself on 
board and getting transportation for himself, his clerk, and his goods free 
of charge, while the United States commissary was obliged to leave part 
of its supplies on the dock at San Francisco, for lack of room ! It is 
needless to say that the sutler arranged a store on the lower deck, where 
he is gradually getting from the soldiers such money as the latter have 
not given to the Chinese crew for Chinese whiskey, a grewsome mixture. 
The commissary is confined to the hold. The authorities on board are 
either indifferent, or ignorant, or helpless to remedy these abuses. The 
commissary was established to take the place of sutlers, and give the men 
articles at cost prices. The height of the ridiculous is reached, however, 
when the clerk of the bureau of information claims to be a correspondent 
for one of the New York dailies. 

"We have arranged matters so as not to place temptation in the way of 
government employees. It is a duty to point out the now practical re- 
sult of political appointments to important offices in the staff corps. In 
no part of the service is experience so essential to the welfare of the army 
and its success, as in the quartermaster's and subsistence departments. 
Every movement an army makes depends upon the quartermaster, for 
he furnishes the clothing, bedding and tents. The duties of the com- 
missary office are not so complex ; still they are equally essential to a suc- 
cessful campaign. A soldier fights as he is fed— a full belly gives stomach 
for war. Hunger breeds discontent and insubordination, and is the best 
ally of the enemy. What can justify the assignment of a totally inex- 
perienced officer as chief commissionary of subsistence? 'Have you had 
any experience in the subsistence department?' he was asked. 'None at 
all,' he frankly answered. 

" ' I suppose you have an experienced clerk then ? ' ' No,' he replied, ' I 
was unable to find a clerk with any experience in the department.' Now 
what can be expected from such an appointment, but failure? It is folly 
to state that subsistence duties are so simple that they can be learned in 
a day, or a week, or a year. It takes many years to make an efficient 
officer of the subsistence department, and still longer to make a good 
quartermaster. The President, in making political appointments to such 
positions, is simply juggling with the health, comfort and lives of patriotic 
citizens." 

And the routine of the astonished western volunteer as he took up the 
grandiose mission of imperialism would have inspired the humorous Mark 



452 RAIN-DRIVEN INGENUITY. 

Twain, to the historical narrative he loves. Could anything better reveal 
our jocose youth, than this picture of the soldier in camp between the dis- 
heartened Spaniards in the trenches of Manila and the hungry eyed na- 
tives awaiting Aguinaldo's signal to pocket the "loot" of the great city? 

"It beats all creation how it can rain out here. Rain is all right in its 
way. Some of it is a good thing. It keeps things reasonably clean and 
furnishes drinking water. But one steady, undisturbed, imperturbable, 
unceasing flood becomes tiresome after a while, and all the time it is wet. 
You don't mind an occasional soaking. It gives excuse for taking a drink. 
But one has something to do down here besides change his clothes and 
drink whisky. And wet feet bring fever. Windows and shutters 
clamped as close together as Spanish rain-driven ingenuity can force 
them, keep out some of the water, and all of the sodden air that courtesy 
calls fresh, because it moves. The mercury charges to the top of its 
glass case in the thermometer, and disappears from view in the barometer. 
The wise men wag their beards and make remarks about typhoons. 
With body and soul burning up with fever, and a Chinchona band 
playing the 'Dead March from Saul ' in your ears, somehow you sort of 
lose focus. Things get out of perspective and there is a lack of consist- 
ent continuity. You wabble about, and the rum you have drunk to help 
the quinine you have eaten, is singularly ineffective for the desired pur- 
pose, but powerfully active in the wrong way." The tone, tense and im- 
plication of this ribaldry matter-of-fact presentation of the soldier con- 
fronting Manila, suggests no end of reflection in the processes of "civi- 
lizing" involved in the seizure of Naboth's vineyard. It is a soldier who 
is speaking. Let us hear him out : 

"Over in camp they are enjoying themselves — if one has no regard for 
truth. Uncle Sam's nephew in the ranks is like the ' Bloomin' cosmopol- 
ouse,' for his work 'begins at Gawd known when, and his work is never 
through.' And the rain has not anything to do with it. He turns out 
at 4:45 in the morning and drills a few hours — (more or less) in the rain. 
Then he gets his breakfast, seasoned with rainwater. After that, lie 
cleans up his rifle and coats it liberally with oil, against the soaking it 
will get in the morning drill. Guard mount interrupts other things, and 
if he happens not to be on the detail, or the police gang, he gets a few 
moments in his soggy shelter tent, to consider the state of the weather 
and to speculate on the subject of patriotism considered as a business. 
After morning drill, he gets a chance to go out into the scrub and gather 
fiome thorned, spiked bamboo. This bamboo, tough, wiry, and covered 
with briers as it is, is the only genuine all around infallible friend he has. 



HOUSEBUILDING IN CAVITE. 463 

As long as his axe and his wit hold out, the bamboo will do the rest. 
He cuts down a long pole perhaps four inches in diameter, and trims off 
all the little branches and big thorns. Then he cuts it into four foot 
lengths. One end he sharpens, and in the other he cuts a good sized 
notch. He drives four of these stakes a foot or more into the ground, 
one at each corner of his tent. The notches in the upper end serve as 
cradles for the long bamboo he lays across them as stringers for the house 
he means to build. These stringers are just as long as his tent. The 
sticks that go with the shelter tent are not long enough now, so he cuts 
a couple of bamboos to serve as tent poles, one at each end. At the 
back of the tent, he swings a bamboo girder between the two stringers, 
resting the ends in notches in the stringers, and lashing them fast with 
fine strips of the surface of green bamboo, tougher, stouter and more 
pliable than wire. 

14 His tent spreads at the bottom about seven feet, and he has one chum 
to help him occupy it. Two feet and a half inside the corner stake, he 
drives another one on each side. These are notched on top also, and 
across them he lays two other stringers, resting the rear end in notches 
at the girder in the back. This gives him the framework of two beds, each 
two and a half feet wide and as long as his tent. Now he splits some 
bamboo poles into thin strips, some just the length of his bed and others 
just the width of it. The strips are perhaps an inch wide and are trimmed 
down to about an eighth of an inch in thickness. His sharp little 
axe is his only tool. He weaves the short strips into long ones, criss- 
cross, until he has a mat just the size of his bedstead. At two feet inter- 
vals along the frame, he slips little bamboo slats in the bed springers. 
Over these he lays his improvised springs, and he has a bed that is cool 
— comparatively, not even an ice machine is really cool down here — and 
comfortable. Between the two beds there is a space about two feet wide 
where he can stand upright. At the rear end of the tent he swings an- 
other little woven mat, about two feet wide between the beds, and there 
he has a little table on which he can put the trinkets which he wants to 
keep out of the wet. Above it, on the rear tent pole, he straps a small 
piece of board, secured somewhere and sawed into the shape of an arm 
rack. There the two guns rest in the intervals between drills and guard 
duty. Some pegs in the tent poles serve as hooks, and the house is fairly 
complete. There is space enough between the beds for the men to walk 
into the tent and for the».r J^et when they want to sit on their beds and 
read or work. A framo ->v the rear pole, beside the arm rack, holds a 
candle. 



454 MERRITT REDUCES THE CHAOS. 

" But the ingenious soldier is not through yet with his devices for com- 
fort. His tent is only one thickness of canvas, and although it will stand 
rain it will not stand against the customary Philippine deluge. He builds 
a light frame of bamboo over it and covers the frame with a thatch of 
banana leaves. Or, perhaps, he uses the ever-faithful bamboo. In front 
of the tent he makes a similar awniug. If the sun should shine by any 
chance, it would serve as a shade, but its chief work is in turning 
rain. Altogether the soldier has built himself a serviceable house. It 
keeps him fairly dry when he can stay in it and his bed is off the ground. 
The tent makes the roof, and the thatch protects that. It is almost as 
good as a native hut. Housebuilding such as this is not done, of course, 
in one morning's respite from routine duty, or in an afternoon either. It 
fills up the interval between army duty for a couple of days, and until it 
is finished the soldier lies on the ground, and stands it as best he can. In 
barracks in Cavite most are ill of sickness, principally due to the fact 
that the men were so near the native village. They ate all sorts of fruit, 
with as much avidity as if they never expected to see fruit of any kind 
again. And they drank whatever they could find in the way of liquor, 
experimentally. The results were often disastrous. At first there was a 
good deal of sickness that was very much like dysentery. General 
Anderson says that there was no dysentery. The medical men shake 
their heads and say they do not think there was any dysentery." 

Perhaps the person most heartily glad of General Merritt's arrival at 
Manila was the sorely perplexed commander of the Spanish forces. For 
with the instinct of the soldier, Merritt soon reduced the chaos of conflict- 
ing ambitions to the cold calculation of the military problem involved. 
He put Aguinaldo in his place. He ordered and enforced strict military 
conditions. He took no note of the native chief's pretensions to civil or 
military sway. The Philippines and all of them within the reach of the 
agents of the United States forces were the instrumentalities of our opera- 
tions. Any one or anybody interfering or molesting, was an enemy of 
the United States. The result was instantaneous and effective. General 
Merritt procured the animals and necessaries of his projected movements, 
swiftly, smoothly. Aguinaldo recognized a master. He had taken ad- 
vantage of his numerical superiority of able-bodied adventurers, to make 
the lives of his Spanish prisoners a mingling of the Inquisition and the 
Black Hole of Calcutta. General Merritt stopped that decisively. He 
released the unfortunate sons of Spain — entreated them, as we entreat 
prisoners of war, and the tale spreading to Manila, the garrison, knowing 



THE IRONY OF FATE. 455 

the hopelessness of resistance, demanded to be put under the clement 
control of the hitherto distrusted Yankees. 

But it is difficult to treat the action about Manila seriously— when dis- 
associated with the majesterial operations of Dewey. For as a matter of 
history there was never a moment the Spanish authorities were not eager 
to end the anguish of uncertainty, and surrender to the Admiral. But 
diplomatic considerations held them back from handing themselves over 
to the fleet. When Merritt came they were more than ready, but, the 
orders from Madrid enjoined delay, countless ulterior considerations 
entered into this childish procrastination. First of all, the British, with 
insidious perversions, delayed decisive action, hoping to embroil the re- 
public with Germany, and making the pretended approachment with the 
Washington Cabinet a lever to intimidate Russia in the Chinese dispute. 
In the end, by that inscrutable irony of fate, which baffles the prevoy- 
ance of the wisest, the attack— welcomed— even arranged by the Spaniards, 
was carried out on the 12th of August, when the preliminaries of peace 
had already been officially signed in Washington. What need to describe 
the subsequent wicked travesty of battle? The Spanish commander had 
arranged with General Merritt that the surrender would follow a pom- 
pous display of land force, sufficient to satisfy Spanish honor ; nor was it a 
well-kept secret that the Captain -General practically suggested the man- 
ner in which the troops should advance, to prevent loss of life on both 
sides. 

At first it was not intended to attack the trenches, but quietly to ad- 
vance after the bombardment had ceased. At the last moment, however, 
the programme was changed. Orders were issued for the land batteries 
to open fire simultaneously with the fleet, and for the advance to be made 
as soon as it was considered practical to assault the Spanish trenches. 
After the bombardment by the fleet had lasted half an hour, General 
Greene decided that it was possible to advance, although signals to cease 
firing were disregarded by the fleet, invisible on account of the rain. Six 
companies of the Colorado regiment leaped over their breastworks, dashed 
into the swamp, and opened volley firing from the partial shelter of the 
low hedges within 300 yards of the Spanish line. A few moments later, 
the remaining six companies moved along the seashore, somewhat covered 
by a sand ridge, forded an inlet under the outworks of the fort, and at 
eleven o'clock occupied this formidable stronghold without loss. Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel McCoy hauled down the Spanish flag and raised the Stars 
and Stripes, amid wild cheers along the line. 

Meanwhile, the fleet, observing the movements of the troops along the 



456 AN AWKWARD SITUATION. 

beach, withheld its fire. The bombardment had lasted exactly an hour. 
Half an hour later, General Greene and staff proceeded along the beach, 
still under a hot infantry fire, from where the Eighteenth Regulars and 
Second Regular Artillery were engaging the enemy, and directed the 
movements of the advance into Malate. In a few moments the outskirts 
of the suburb were occupied and the Spanish sharp shooters were driven 
away. As the Californians (Colonel Smith) came up the beach, the band 
played a national air, accompanied by the whistling of Mauser bullets ; 
during the sharp shooting the band continued to encourage the men with 
music. Each regiment carried its colors into action. There was con- 
siderable street fighting in the suburbs of Malate and Ermita, but a bat- 
talion of the Californians pushed into the Luneta, a popular promenade 
within 200 yards of the moat of the citadel. Then the white flag was 
hoisted at the southwest corner of the walled town. At this moment, the 
Spanish forces retreating from Santa Anna came into view, visibly 2,000 
strong, followed by the insurgents who had eluded General MacArthur's 
troops, and opened fire. The situation was awkward if not critical, both 
sides being justifiably suspicious of treachery. The Spanish troops lining 
the citadel ramparts, observing the insurgents' apparition, opened fire on 
the Californians, killing one and wounding three. The confusion, how- 
ever, soon ceased by the shifting of the retreating Spaniards to the 
esplanade, when General Greene ordered them to enter the citadel. 
Presently, a letter was brought from the Captain-General, requesting the 
commander of the United States troops to meet him for a consultation. 
General Greene at once presented himself at the Spanish headquarters 
and General Merritt followed. The terms of the surrender were then 
ratified — and were substantially to this effect: 

An agreement for the capitulation of Manila ; a provision for the dis- 
arming of the men who remain organized under the command of their offi- 
cers, no parole being exacted, necessary supplies to be furnished from the 
captured treasury funds, any possible deficiency being made good by the 
United States authorities ; the safety of life and property of Spanish sol- 
diers and citizens to be guaranteed as far as possible ; the question of the 
transporting of the troops to Spain to be deferred to the decision of Wash- 
ington, and that of the returning of their arms to the soldiers, to be left 
to the discretion of General Merritt; banks and similar institutions to 
continue operations under the existing regulations, unless these are 
changed by the United States authorities. 

It was not war and it was not glory, but at the same time, General 
Merritt planned and executed with consummate wisdom. He did not 




Major-General F. V. Greene. 



IIrig. -General Charles King. 




Brig. -General F. D. Grant. 



Brig. -General W. S. Worth. 



LETTING THEM DOWN EASY. 



459 



know that the prayer of the Madrid government had been finally 
granted; that peace had been virtually proclaimed; that every life lost 
was a sacrifice to form and pride. General Merritt, in short, proved that 
the trained soldier is always to be trusted in military diplomacy. Spain 
and her colonies lay prone at the behest of the Washington Cabinet. 

Notwithstanding the presence of the army under Merritt, the fleet was 
the main factor in the reduction of the Philippine capital. It must have 
irked Dewey, a man of sincerity, to go through the rather trivial per- 
formance exacted as his part in letting the wretched Spaniards down 
easily. The great ships volleyed and thundered; they did it however, 
with very little heart. Indeed, the whole episode is better forgotten— for 
it was not war— though a sad number were killed and wounded. The fleet 
fired two hours— but there is no precise record that the massive guns 
which destroyed Montojo in two hours, wrought any appreciable havoc 
in the walls of Manila. There were columns of lurid cablegrams to de- 
scribe the wanton waste of life, but the judicious should prefer to draw a 
veil over the scene. Manila was handed over to General Merritt and 
then it was made known that peace had been proclaimed three days befo*«. 




BLUE MONDAY. 



25 



PART III. 

BY far the most fascinating episode of the wondrous Oriental escapade 
was the cruise of the Yankee commanders over the summer seas. 
Fiction itself seems pale and nerveless in confronting the immense voy- 
age of the inconscient homespun crusaders of our wild west, embattled 
in the cause of "humanity." Could the mind of man conceive a more 
grotesque epopee than the sailing of armadas of Pacific slope youth, to 
rear the flag of progress over islands, subdued three hundred years ago 
by the knights and paladins of the most lettered and accomplished people 
in Europe ? The men as they sailed, the decorous hierarchy of the Yan- 
kee Captain-General Merritt, seemed to realize this. The spirit of the 
reports sent by the literary squad detailed by the "great " journals, im- 
presses this. It is from these acute and humorous observers that history 
must take the record. The subjoined seems to me a faithful picture of 
the mingled mirth, travesty and significance of one grotesque conquest. 

Nearly midway between Honolulu and the Philippines, Spain has pos- 
sessed since the first conquest of European navigators, an island system 
known as the Ladrones, whose history is a sparkling volume of the ro- 
mance and adventure attaching to the early exploits of Spanish and Por- 
tuguese navigators. Now though we believe ourselves the least impres- 
sionable, least sentimental — least romance-loving of races, the truth is, 
we are all these to our finger tips. We love adventure ; we love the hu- 
morous, the soft answer that turns away wrath, is never more emollient 
than the gibe or the fist with us. We are celts to the core of our being. 
We love to dare and we love to laugh at all we dare. The keynote of 
the entrancing history which has made the perpetuity of the Napoleonic 
legend possible among the politest race in Europe, " The Consulate and 
Empire" of Thiers, is his perpetual reminder of the "Gaiete francaise " 
which upheld the legions of the republic in thirty years conquests. We 
have not the Gaiete francaise, but we have the naive humor of the race 
to which we are indebted for most of our national traits — the celt. 
Hence the sail over the summer seas, to the morgen land of the Teuton 
— was a diversion — tinged with such dreams as buoyed the myriads that 
marched to Palestine in the dim twilight of civilization. I dare say, not 
one man in a thousand of the impulsive warriors dedicated to the war of 
"humanity," had ever heard of the Ladrone group or knew the curious 

(460} 



THE ROBBER ISLANDS. 461 

origin of the name — " Robber islands." But as war demands that yon 
shall injure and despoil the adversary wherever the chance offers, the 
commander of the first expedition manceuvered his armada into the harboi 
of Spain 's unsuspicious dependency. " Guam " is the geographical nam< 
of the chief entrepot of the Ladrones. Thither, the first division ol 
General Merritt's Manila expedition directed its course. The conquest 
is so thoroughly characteristic of the whole war, that it deserves perma 
nent embalming, and I take the record from one of the scribes on th« 
fleet as being too naively picturesque for condensation or improvement. 

" Early in the morning, the fleet rounded the northern extremity oi 
Guam island and headed southward toward the harbor, the Charleston 
well in the lead. The chief town, Agana, containing the residence of the 
Governor and the garrison, lies on the north side of a coral peninsula, 
jutting far out into the ocean. The Charleston worked slowly in toward 
the town, as far as she dared to go because of coral shoals, and when 
satisfied that the two Spanish gunboats, which were supposed to be some 
where among these outlying islands, and which were one of the chief ob 
jects of her quest, were not there, she turned her prow seaward again 
and rounded the end of the coral spit ; passing through a narrow chan 
nel between the reef and a high bluff of volcanic basalt, slowly pushed 
her way into the harbor of San Luis, which is the chief harbor of tha 
island, whose landing place, Unapa, is about four miles across the penin- 
sula from Agana. The three transports lay to off the entrance, beyond 
the reach of cannon-shot, their upper decks and rigging black with the. 
crowds of soldiers eager to see the expected battle. 

" Well within the harbor was seen a vessel, which, under the glass, 
proved to be a small whaling brig flying the Japanese flag. It was 
painted white, and when first seen created considerable excitement, being 
mistaken for one of the Spanish gunboats. Near the shore, on the oppo- 
site side of the bay, which is here about two miles wide, was seen a low 
fort, apparently built of stone and faced with earth, with trees growing 
from the embankment around it. 

44 When she was within two miles of the fort, the Charleston opened fire 
upon it, with her three-pounders, firing thirteen shots in rapid succession, 
four of which were seen to strike the fort. 

44 The bloodless conquest was hailed with derisive cheers, for the fort was 
an ancient structure, built ninety years ago of coral, and never had a 
cannon mounted. It had not been occupied for half a century, having 
been originally constructed as a defence against the natives, and not for the 
protection of the harbor against warships. Pon (Quixote's famous charge 



462 THE LAWS OF SPAIN FORBID. 

on the windmills had been eclipsed by the Yankee navy. Some time 
before the Charleston entered the harbor, the fleet had been observed 
from the landing at Unapa, and the port officer had ordered out his gig 
for the purpose of going aboard in his capacity as quarantine official. In 
addition to this, an old brass cannon had been loaded for the purpose of 
returning the expected salute. The port officer was about half-way out 
to the ship when the firing began, and did not notice that solid shot were 
being fired. This intelligence however was speedily conveyed to the men 
in charge of the shore cannon, by a horseman, who had been riding some- 
what in the rear of the fort, and was consequently made painfully aware 
that cannon balls were sailing in his direction. He rode posthaste to the 
landing «nd asked them what they were going to do with the cannon, 
and was told that they were about to answer the salute. This put a new 
phase on the matter to the Spanish officials, and immediately the Govern- 
or's adjutant embarked in a boat, and hastened after the health officer for 
the purpose of going aboard the Charleston to inquire the meaning of 
such unfriendly conduct. The health officer was the first to arrive on 
board. When he climbed over the side he was escorted to Captain 
Glass's stateroom, and learned for the first time the vessel he had thought 
of quarantining, was a warship of the United States navy, intent upon 
capturing the island. A few minutes later the indignant adjutant 
climbed over the side and received the same information. He was fur- 
ther told to return immediately to the shore and bring the Governor on 
board. Meanwhile, the transports were signaled to follow the Charles- 
ton into the harbor, which they quickly did, the vessels being anchored 
within a few hundred yards of each other. 

"At three o'clock the adjutant returned on board with a message from 
the Governor, saying ' That the laws of Spain forbid him to go on board 
a foreign warship, and that negotiations must be conducted on shore.' 
Captain Glass then sent Lieutenant Braunersreuter, with a very courteous 
note stating in effect that war existed between the United States and 
Spain, that a war vessel of the republic, with three transports loaded with 
troops, was in the harbor, with orders to take possession of the island of 
Guam ; that it was folly for his small force to make resistance, demanding 
that he surrender himself, his garrison, and all arms and munitions of war, 
and giving him until morning to reply. When morning came and no reply 
having been received, Captain Glass sent the Governor word that he 
would wait only half an hour longer, and at once embarked a landing 
party in boats for the purpose of taking forcible possession. This party 
consisted of about fifty marines from the Charleston, and Companies A 



WAVING A WHITE FLAG. 4^3 

and D of the Second Oregon, from the Australia. A strong wind was 
blowing, and there was a heavy swell in the harbor, making the embark- 
ation a slow and difficult task. The pitching and tossing of the boats 
along side the vessel was so great that a number of the men, notwith- 
standing that they had been a month on board ship, became seasick. As 
the long string of thirteen boats started for shore, two miles distant, 
towed by the Charleston's launch, a tremendous downpour of rain, such 
as is only seen in the tropics, accompanied by a driving wind, obscured 
the entire landscape and wet the men to the skin, giving them a baptism 
of water in advance of owe of fire, they expected soon to receive. How- 
ever, before the boats reached the shore, the Governor's gig was seen to 
put out from the landing, waving a white flag in token of surrender, and 
the landing party was immediately taken back to the vessels, greatly dis- 
appointed. 

"The Governor's Adjutant went on board the Charleston and delivered 
to Captain Glass a letter from his chief, saying, in view of the fact that 
he had been utterly unaware that hostilities had broken out between the 
two nations, and had therefore made no preparations for defence, and was 
utterly helpless before the overwhelming force that had been sent against 
him, and for reasons of humanity, and a desire to avoid needless blood- 
shed, he would surrender upon condition that the usual treatment of 
prisoners of war be accorded him and his officers, and that his men be 
given as good quarters and fare on board ship as the republic's soldiers 
received. These terms were accepted, and a company of marines was 
sent on shore, accompanied by Lieutenant Braunersreuter, to receive the 
surrender. The garrison consisted of fifty-four Spanish veterans and a 
hundred and fifty native soldiers with six officers, including the Governor. 
The garrison was drawn up in line awaiting the arrival of the marines, 
who were promptly disembarked and drawn up in line opposite the 
Spaniards. The Governor and his subordinates presented their swords to 
the American officer, and took their places in the boats ; the soldiers 
stacked arms, and, as the marines filed in front of them with boxes, each 
man took off his cartridge belt and threw it into the box. The Spanish 
soldiers were then placed in the boats and the native soldiers were dis- 
banded. As soon as thus formally absolved from their allegiance to 
Spain, the native soldiers cut off their buttons and all insignia of rank 
they had and threw them away, to show their contempt for the 
government which they had been unwillingly serving. The captured 
soldiers were then conveyed to the steamer City of Sydney, and placed 
under guard, while the Charleston's launch steamed out to the ancient 



464 



A TEMPORARY GOVERNOR. 



coral fort and raised above it the Stars and Stripes, the guns of the 
Charleston pealing forth a salute to the flag, thus ending the ceremony of 
taking formal possession in the name of the United States. 

" The arms surrendered consisted of fifty-four Mauser rifles, fifty-three 
Remington rifles, and 3,700 rounds of ammunition. As it was thought it 
was absolutely necessary that the entire force present be conveyed to 
Manila for the support of Admiral Dewey, it was decided not to leave 
any garrison on the island. This was considered safe, as the natives are 
a very peaceable class, well-dis- 
posed toward the Americans, and 
there is no Spanish population left 
since the removal of the garrison, 
except the families of the Governor 
and one or two of his officers and 
a priest. There is but one United 
States citizen on the island of 
Guam, and he was selected for 
temporary Governor. This is 
Thomas Wilson, a keeper of a 
trading post, born on the island, 
of California!) parents. So earnest 
a Yankee is he that he has made 
the practice of filing an oath of 
allegiance to the Washington gov- 
ernment, in San Francisco, every 
two years. The soldiery were 
given time to go on shore and im- 
press on their minds the physical 
aspect of this merry conquest. 
They found the natives docile 

and delighted. What was more extraordinary, they found that gold was 
at a discount, no article on the market was rated above a few pennies, and 
when a five dollar gold piece was presented for a supply of food for one 
of the ships, the bewildered natives implored copper or coins that could 
be exchanged. With this lesson in the purely perfunctory values of 
the metals, the soldiers quitted the new possession wondering greatly 
why the islands should bear the disreputable name of the Ladrones, or 
Robbers. 

The Ladrones were first discovered bj r the accomplished mariner, 
Magellan, whose name is still known by the strait south of Terra deL 




NATIVE OF THE LADRONES. 



AS THOUGH BY MAGIC. 465 

Fuego. He landed among the astonished people of the group, after a 
wonderous voyage, in 1520. The wretched explorer was in the worst 
state of the adventurous sailor. His ships were foodless and his men 
mutinying. He was received with rapture by the islanders, and his crew 
were so enchanted with the land, the people, and the natural nourishment, 
that they clamored to remain forever. But in a short time an extraor- 
dinary phenomenon was remarked. Everything portable disappeared 
from the ships. How Indians almost naked, could contrive to handle and 
carry off articles of the size of those which disappeared was a mystery. 
But they managed it somehow, for axes, heavy crowbars, and even guns, 
vanished as though by magic. Magellan one day noticed one of the 
Indians swimming ashore from the ship. A heavy wave was encountered 
by the swimmer. He dived under it, and as he came out of the other 
side, a sharp steel point glittered for a moment in the sun. As a boat 
was then alongside, Magellan had the man pursued, and when he was 
overtaken, to the astonishment of every one, it was found that he was 
carrying off one of the longest lances on the ship, a weapon with an 
eighteen foot shaft, Holding it beneath the water he would have escaped 
with his booty undiscovered, had it not been for the unusual height of the 
wave which disclosed the head of the weapon. Thenceforward a guard 
was placed over the ships, but to little purpose, and finally, after provid- 
ing himself with food and water, Magellan sailed away and in disgust 
gave the islands the epithet of " Ladrones," or Thieves' island. Not long 
afterward Magellan perished in a fight which he and his men provoked 
with the Philippine islanders. Of his five ships, only one, with eighteen 
men, returned to Spain. Many years elapsed before any attempts were 
made to occupy the islands which he had discovered. Toward the end of 
the seventeenth century a military expedition from Mexico took possession 
of the islands and renamed them the Mariana group, in honor of the then 
reigning Spanish queen. The natives at that time numbered at least 
40,000, some estimates placing the population as high as 60,000, but, follow- 
ing their usual custom elsewhere, the Spaniards soon exterminated almost 
the entire population. 

The present islanders are mostly descendants of settlers from Mexico 
or from the Philippine Islands. The most considerable town on any of 
the group is Saypan, on the island of the same name, the houses of which 
like most of those in the South Sea Islands, are elevated on piles from 
two to four feet above the ground. There are few Spanish settlers on the 
islands, and the hold of Spain upon the group has been for the most part 
nominal. It is a singular fact, discovered by the navigator, Anson, that 



466 



THE BREAD FRUIT PLANT. 



there are evidences on several of the islands of a former civilization. 
Cyclopean ruins exist, found in the islands of the Greek archipelago. 
These lonely islands must therefore at one time have been a seat of 
civilization. Aside from the bouffe capture, the point of most interest 
regarding the group of islands is the historical location of the "bread 
fruit " plant. It is set down in Dam pier, the accepted authority, and is 




NATIVE HUT IN THE LADRONES. 



worth reproducing now that, the flag of the republic is flying over the 
unknown lands. " A certain fruit called the bread fruit growing on a 
tree as big as our large apple trees with dark leaves. The fruit is round 
and grows on the boughs, like apples, of the bigness of a good penny loaf. 
When ripe it turns yellow, soft and sweet, but the native takes it green 
and bakes it in an oven until the rind is black. This they scrape off and 
eat the inside, which is soft and white, like the inside of a new baked 
bread, having neither seed nor stone; but if it is kept above twenty-four 
hours it is harsh. As this fruit is in season eight months in the year, the 



THE "STARRY BANNER." 



467 



natives feed upon no other sort of bread during that time. They told us 
that all the Ladrone Isles had plenty of it. I never heard of it in any 
other place." It is an old maxim, old as greed, that to derive profit from 
travel, the tourist must be laden with knowledge. The conquerors of 
the Ladrones knew nothing of bread fruit, and went away, rejoicing only 
in the visible evidencs that Uncle Sam had been able to give still another 
conquest to the " starry banner." 




THE COLOR GUARD. 




oo 

CO 



I!. 

BEFORE a tithe of the legions were mustered for the " liberation " of 
the oppressed Cuban, the reader of the official literature of the war 
was perplexed by the tone taken in outlining the conquest of Porto Rico. 
Not one in 10,000 of the citizens of the republic had ever given a thought 
to this island. Any one who did give it a passing moment of consider- 
ation, found it to be an ideally happy community of almost primitive 
simplicity. Closer study revealed it to be a land where life went on in 
almost philosophic repose. The wealth getter got his wealth undisturbed 
by the vicissitudes of party. The demagogue clamoring for the ideal — 
which generally means chaos, had never raised his Bashan voice in the 
delectable vales where man seemed to live at his rational best. The 
Spaniard was in the ascendant, but there was no "patriot" to inflame 
the citizen over his cruelties. Babies were born, marriages were cele- 
brated, the banal in life held its course serenely, and no one ever thought 
of raising the cry of " Porto Rico Libre." The island, too far off to 
attract the attention of the philanthropists of the stock markets, the 
Samaritan of the syndicates, dwelt in a peace and prosperity so profound, 
that even the tourist had no tales to tell of the people. But the moment 
the enterprise for " humanity " was begun by our Congress, 500,000 
■"Mute inglorious Miltons" found voice to sing the praises of Porto Rico, 
to inveigh against the unholy chance that made it a colony of the blood- 
thirsty, the monstrous Spaniard. Insensibly — orphically, the voice up- 
rose, that Porto Rico was predestinedly a vineyard of this republic. That 
even more religiously sacred than the mission of establishing " Cuba 
Libre," was the obligation to give the pensive Porto Ricans the blessings 
of our Federal system. 

Indeed, the war had not been a week old, when the official expression 
was common, current, indisputable, that the end of the war must see 
Porto Rico part of the territory of this Union ! Yet in the declaration 
of war, uttered by Congress, it was expressly stipulated, that unlike 
greedy and egotistic European powers, we were embarking on war, for 
the high motive of human rescue ; that no ulterior craving for gain in- 
cited us to that last, barbarous resource, the killing of our fellow man, 
in order that others might enjoy the liberties that we prize so highly. 
And oddly enough, this word of conquest went forth in every press in the 

(469) 



470 NABOTH'S VINEYARD OVER AGAIN. 

country without rebuke. Indeed, I question whether the vast majority 
of the men who read the story of Nabotlrs vineyard with fervid abhor- 
rence of greed, with Christian anger against the covetousness of the 
strong, did not complacently accept this apparently national impulse as 
proper — perhaps even righteous. At all events, even more eagerly and 
more ardently than the mobilization for Cuba, the preparations to make 
an irruption in Porto Rico were begun and carried on. The military folk 
feigned to believe that Spain would stake all, on the retention of this 
earthly paradise, where for nearly four hundred years the laws of Castile 
had been the religion of the natives. Where felicity was so complete, 
that the idle and the evil were unable to recruit even the semblance of 
a revolt. And indeed, had the wretched Spaniards possessed the slender- 
est resources for war, they would have been quick to concentrate them in 
this blissful land, where insurrection had never been seriously known ; 
where the revenues exacted were paid promptly, where gentle and simple 
asked only to be let alone. 

But Spain had neither armies nor navies to defend the shattered rem- 
nants of her ancient world dominion. The retention of Cuba had 
drained the home treasury ; the plots of pretenders, alone, had prevented 
her relinquishing the island to whomsoever wanted it; but Porto Rico, 
she did prize — prized as the miserable mother who, helpless and penniless, 
sees her brood going into the world to do as best they may. In our 
presses, the Porto Rico campaign eclipsed Cuba. There were no conceal- 
ments; no phrases; we were going to march into this idyllic land and 
when we had ensanguined its rich fields with blood, we were going to 
hoist " Old Glory" as the symbol of a new felicity. But our studious 
plans for a symmetrical campaign were disjointed, first by the inability of 
Spain to present any equal force anywhere except at Havana and the 
woeful necessity of her miserable fleet to take refuge in Santiago. Now 
what our jingoes counted on was a Sevastopol siege of Havana, lasting a 
year or more and giving patriots the chance to aid the government with 
food and munitions at a thousand per cent, above the market cost. It wa*» 
counted as certain, that the war could be very reasonably prolonged from 
a year to eighteen months. Had it depended on the manipulation of the 
War Department, this expectation would not have been disappointed. 
Two almost simultaneous discoveries fell upon the fomentors of war; 
Manila proved that Spain's fleets could not fight, and the operations in 
Cuba, proved that there were no " patriots " on the isle. In all the 
threatened possessions of the Castilian dynasty the Spaniard virtually 
bade our armies come and take possession ; that they had neither the 



THE VALUE OF FORESIGHT. 471 

strength nor disposition to make war. In Porto Rico, above all, the 
Spanish armies were few in number. Militia or volunteers were set in 
'the field to defend the island, but the Captain-General had no hope that 
they would fight. 

Study of the map of Porto Rico, by the War Board, revealed admira- 
ble lines of defence. Indeed, with a stout navy and a capable army Porto 
Rico would have been as costly a conquest as Vicksburg or Richmond. 
When the first bewildering results of Prussian prevoyance began to 
prove the value of foresight, in the campaign against France, there was 
no detail too incredible, that went to accentuate the tireless industry of 
the Prussian staff. It was for example, greedily believed that Von Moltke 
appealed to late at night, when war had been forced by Bismarck's for- 
gery, roused himself only an instant, to set the campaign in motion, by 
directing the staff officer to open drawer three, bureau ten! Of course, 
this was the silliest of silly inventions, for Bismarck has left the imper- 
ishable record of his own malevolent dishonesty and Moltke's feverish 
unrest during the hours when the forged dispatch was doing its deadly 
work. 

But in the beginning of the colossal enterprise which meant the oust- 
ing of Spain from the Antilles, our War Department was forced to make 
use of all the arts and intrigues which form the staple of certain schools 
of fiction. To illustrate this, the adventures of Lieutenant Henry W. 
Whitney deserve reciting. The War Board, the Naval strategists re- 
quired accurate, absolute knowledge of the status of the Spanish military 
power, in the islands of Cuba and Porto Rico. Young Whitney of the 
Fourth United States Artillery, a hero of the kind that crucial moments 
develop, offered himself to the eye and ear of authority. Death was 
the very least of the dangers he risked— for death is the devoir of the 
soldier. But for him there was the ignoble shrift of the spy, the uncon- 
secrated burial of the dishonored. Young Whitney, aglow with the confi- 
dence of the Commander-in-Chief, Miles, burning to make the invasion 
affective, set out for the enemy's country, light of heart, constant in pur- 
pose, confronting death at every turn and never for an instant, doubtful 
or unequal to the emergencies his mission contemplated. Romance itself, 
seems the only vehicle to recount the daring of this officer, for from the 
moment he touched Cuban soil, until the hour that he felt his mission 
done, that his mandate was executed, he confronted execution. He passed 
through the jaws of death in forms often grotesque, for he was compelled 
to take the office of journalist, what not, to placate the hostile curiosity 
of his captors. In one crisis he was a British sailor, lost from his ship; 



472 



YOUNG WHITNEY'S MISSION. 



in another, a correspondent of a British journal, seeking facts. Again, 
he was a happy-go-lucky adventurer, earning his daily dole as best he 
might. 

Whitney represents faithfully the spirit of the army the republic has 
trained. He left Washington in the early part of April with important 
documents for General Gomez, the Commander-in-Chief of the insurgent 
army in Cuba. These were from General Miles, and conveyed instruc- 
tions for the Cuban army to meet the United States army. The Lieuten- 
ant was landed on Cu- 
ban soil by a torpedo 
boat, and on April 28th, 
with his escort of in- 
surgents, reached Gen- 
eral Gomez's camp and 
delivered his messages. 
With another escort, 
Lieutenant Whitney 
was conducted through 
the enemy's country, 
and finally reached a 
point on the shore where 
he was to secure passage 
and continue his trip to 
Porto Rico. But to get 
to Porto Rico and find 
out, what it was essen- 
tial that General Miles 
and the Washington 
authorities should 
know, Whitney had to 
play the part of stoker. 
This he did without an 

instant's hesitation — he was set to shoveling coal into the furnaces of a 
British ship. When the steamship arrived at Ponce, Whitney was a 
trusted member of the crew, and even went about buying stores for the 
vessel. Then came the opportunity the young Lieutenant was waiting 
for; with a little knowledge of the Spanish language he succeeded in 
making the acquaintance of the Spaniards, who at times asked suspi- 
ciously "Are you an American?" "No I'm not one of those damn 
Yankees, I'm an Englishman-" As the Spaniards believed that the 




LIEUTENANT HENRY W. WHITNEY. 



EYES AND EARS OPEN. 473 

British were secretly opposed to the Yankees, his reply allayed all 
doubt. 

Meanwhile, the Lieutenant kept his eyes and ears open, and was men- 
tally storing away such information as could be picked up. He deter- 
mined to scour the island as thoroughly as possible, and for this purpose 
he obtained a horse and started off over valleys and plains, where strategic 
points existed. He found that on the island there were about two thou- 
sand Spanish regulars, and almost as many volunteers. The latter 
were discontented, and ready to flock to the support of the United 
States troops when landed. Throughout the island the feeling was un- 
equivocally anti-Spanish. Workmen on plantations were generally con- 
sidered as part of the volunteer troops, and they had as their captains 
their employer's plantation manager. Both men and employers while 
they feigned allegiance to Spain, were really opposed to that nation's 
rule. There was very little opportunity for the insurgents to carry on 
their style of warfare, as there is little growth of underbrush, the wood- 
land having been pretty well cleared, and nothing left standing but the 
royal palms of Palma Real. 

It reads like fiction again when this volunteer of the republic perform- 
ing seaman service, saw the formidable agents of Spain taking possession 
of the vessel he was serving on, in quest of a " Yankee officer." Whit- 
ney was standing on the deck at the time checking the cargo as it was 
lowered into the hold. He greeted the Spanish officers equably and 
learning their mission said :— " The captain is not on board at present, 
but I know he would be pleased to have you satisfy yourselves that the 
report is false. If you wish I'll accompany you." There was no neces- 
sity for an escort, the officers replied, as they searched every part of the 
steamship ; they finally reappeared and expressed themselves as satisfied 
that they had been misinformed. Heroism like this was so lavish during 
the decisive months that ended in Santiago's surrender, that the histor- 
ian had no space to tell of it— but in all the battles, in all the self-sacri- 
fices that have won campaigns, there are few episodes more worthy of a 
nation's admiration than this modest intrepidity— and there were an 
hundred score, quite as thrilling— which in the days to come the novelist 
will make much of. 

In feverish haste, while the starving Spaniards were beseeching our 
clemency at Santiago, the formidable armaments gathered at Tampa were 
hurried on board transports for the conquest of Porto Rico. To add 
dignity to the enterprise the general-in-chief of the armies, who had been 
denied the glory of compelling the surrender of Santiago, was put at the 



474 INVADING PORTO RICO. 

head of the column "invading" Porto Rico. He took with him for this 
momentous operation twofold the force allotted to the conquest of the 
Cuban stronghold. Dithyrambic refrains in the press stimulated national 
expectation. But it must be recorded, that in spite of all the tom-toms, 
the Porto Rico expedition excited but languid interest. It excited still less 
when the reports came that Miles had landed at Ponce. That the aston- 
ished Spaniards had run away ; that the equally astonished citizens had 
welcomed the invaders with primitive hospitality. Then General Miles 
issued an "address" and every citizen of the republic that took thought 
of its duplicity hung his head in shame. For the address was a tissue 
of — l e t us say — misconceptions. The general informed the stupefied 
Porto Ricans that the great republic, whose heart was being torn with 
grief over the wrongs of the islanders, had sent its armies to end the peo- 
ple's woes ; that in future the downtrodden should be the wards of the 
republic ; that life should be a grand, sweet dream. 

Twenty thousand troops appeared in the island to make good General 
Miles' pronounciamento. From the debarkation at Ponce, to the occupa- 
tion of the insular capital, there was nothing that could be called war. 
The islanders submitted with equanimity to the invasion — to the substi- 
tution of the control of the United States over the incapable government 
of Spain. The majority of the people, perfectly indifferent to the owner- 
ship of the island, simply desired to be let alone. The conquest was 
complete with the mere appearance of the United States forces. We 
wanted the island ; Spain was powerless to hold it, and it was ours. 
Then too, the preliminaries of peace were under discussion, delay might 
make the seizure more awkward. Perhaps the most conclusive comment 
on this Porto Rico enterprise can be embodied in the utterances of a Porto 
Rican, who has passed years in longing for the state we call "freedom." 

For a Porto Rico, owning itself, a native of the isle — one " Hos- 
tos," makes the situation clear in his melancholy plaint: 

" What I had desired for Porto Rico was that, since her own arm was 
too weak to achieve her independence, it might be won for her by a noble 
and powerful neighbor no longer able to endure the spectacle of old-world 
tyranny at her very door ; that this liberator should tarry long enough to 
see the infant republic born and assured of the vigorous beginning of 
life; that the emancipator should then withdraw with the love and grati- 
tude of a new nation, rightfully bearing a gladly yielded paramount in- 
fluence with that nation in all continental and international matters. 
This conclusion, I am sure, would have been better in the end for Porto 
Rico as well as the United States. For America it would have meant so 




Major-General Nelson A. Miles. 



SERIOUS MISAPPREHENSION. 



477 



much the less of the fatal imperial policy, and so much the more of ad- 
herence to the wholesome traditions of the past. For the island it would 
have meant development according to the genius of the people— not de- 
velopment which must encounter at every step the difficulties raised by 
difference of race, to temperament of language, and of education. 

"The population of Porto Rico are totally ignorant of the federal system 
of government ; even those who fancy that they understand it are, for the 

most part, mistaken. It will be diffi- 



cult for them to comprehend it; it 
will be still more difficult for them to 
adapt themselves to it and enter into 
it. An obstacle, and to my mind a 
serious one, will arise in an introduc- 
tion of a language foreign to the peo- 
ple as the official language of the 
island. It will tend in a measure 
to the creation of caste ; to the rise 
of an official class sharply set off 
from the rest of the inhabitants. 
The passing of the Spanish language 
will in itself be viewed with regret, 
for Spanish, as it is, it is dear to all 
who speak it. Impediments in the 
transactions of affairs, business as 
well as governmental, will also neces- 
sarily be produced by this difference in language, and their tendency will 
be more or less toward irritation and friction. How many of my country- 
men will agree with me in the views I hold, I cannot state with positive- 
ness, but there are not a few I am confident, and it seems to me that it 
should be easy for all to comprehend where their best interests lie. The 
press of the United States has rightly made a great deal of the open 
arms with which the Porto Ricans have received the army of General 
Miles. All those manifestations of delight — the resounding addresses 
of welcome, the flowers, the tears of joy, the embraces of the unre- 
strained enthusiasm — were questionlessly honest and sincere. Yet — and 
I assert this with absolute conviction — they were founded upon a serious 
misapprehension. 

" The Porto Ricans have taken for granted that the purpose of the United 
States was, first, to strike a military blow at Spain, and second, to seize 
the opportunity to put an end forever to Spanish misgovernment in the 
26 




NATIVE OF PORTO RICO. 



478 THE GOOD INVOLVED. 

Antilles, by erecting on the island a free and independent government. 
The policy of annexation, the imposition of sovereignty upon a people 
without its solicitation and even without inquiry as to its desires, they 
never suspected for one moment, opposed as it was to the fundamental 
principles which had hitherto guided the republic. What revulsion of 
feeling may follow a recognition of the true intention of the United 
States, no one can tell. But what avails it now to talk in this strain ? 
The die is cast. The policy of the United States has been declared to 
the world and it is doubtless inalterable. This being so, it behooves 
Porto Ricans to consider the future in the fixed light of annexation. 
Whatever disappointment may be felt, however acute it may be at first, 
I expect that it will give way to a general and hearty acceptance of the 
status. The infinitude of good involved in the change from Spanish to 
republican allegiance, forbids any other conclusion. But since our lot is 
cast with the United States, we shall now desire, with intense eagerness 
to be admitted to full participation in all the prerogatives of a sovereign 
unit of the republic. We aspire to reach as speedily as possible our sta- 
tion among the states — to be that element in the affairs of the union 
which such a status implies. The continuance of a military government 
will be particularly unpleasing to Porto Ricans, reminiscent as it will be 
of the odious shape of Spanish rule. A territorial government will be 
viewed as a necessary stage, it may be, but with impatience for its termi- 
nation. Since we must be Yankees we cannot be blamed if we are anx- 
ious to become at once as citizens of the republic, the most Yankee of 
the Yankees. At present we are not the best of material for such a 
transformation, but immediate conversion will perhaps be for us the best 
educative process." 

And so in the year 1898 an administration elected to preserve the 
sanctity of gold over silver, embarked on a crusade to acquire territory. 
Congress decreed a war for humanity and the minute the legions were 
formed we made it a war for conquest. We turned from suffering and 
bleeding Cuba, and directed our chief armament to Porto Rico. We 
frankly declared that we were going there because we coveted the island. 
We met no opposition and the island is ours. But there are other islands 
near by that it would be good to have. Jamaica, Martinique, the Ba- 
hamas — strangely enough we never made a move toward them. 



III. 

BARELY had General Shafter raised the flag of the republic over 
Santiago, when an ominous forecaste of our new responsibilities 
was made plain. The Cuban leaders demanded as a right, entrance into 
the captured stronghold, and the instant substitution of a Cuban regime 
for the Spanish system. General Shafter, by instructions from Washington, 
refused peremptorily to admit the insurgent armies as participants in the 
pageant of occupation or the replacing of local authorities by the 
Cubans. Thereupon one of the eminent insurgent leaders seceded from 
union with the « liberators," and marched away with his army to continue 
the war elsewhere. Disquieting reports of continued warfare went on in 
the territory surrendered by General Toral, the Spanish commander, and 
for ten days it seemed that the insurrection against Spain was to be re- 
vived against the Yankees. The "Juntas" made assiduous attempts to 
incite their old allies, the Jingo presses, to revive the "Cuba Libre " cry, 
and fire the country in favor of the " patriots " denied the recognition of 
their valor. The masses, however, who had come under the sphere of 
our influence, that is the army, petitioned the General in command, and 
even the Cabinet in Washington, to spare them from the horrors of the 
Cuban domination. These masses included very nearly every citizen 
owning property— every native of serious repute. The army folk were 
naturally surprised. We had gone to war, as we supposed, to give thes? 
very people, free government, home rule, self-control, and here they were 
to a man demanding a military regime, rather than the Cuban constitu- 
tion and republican machinery so long waiting to crown the efforts of the 
patriots! In the embarrassment of the situation— the President issued a 
proclamation which at once gave Cuba tranquillity. Among other as- 
surances, the executive held out these significant promises: 

"Under this changed condition of things, the inhabitants so long as 
they perform their duties, are entitled to security in their persons and 
property, and all their private right and relations. It is my desire that 
the inhabitants of Cuba should be acquainted with the purpose of 
the United States to discharge to the fullest extent its obligations in this 
regard. It will therefore be the duty of the commander of the army of 
occupation, to announce and proclaim in the most public manner, that we 
come, not to make war upon the inhabitants of Cuba nor upon any party 

(479) 



480 UNDER CHANGED CONDITIONS. 

or faction among them, but to protect them in their homes, in their em- 
ployments and in their personal and religious rights. All persons who 
by active aid or honest submission cooperate with the United States, in 
its efforts to give effect to this beneficent purpose, will receive the reward 
of its support and protection." 

Existing laws were to continue in force, and as far as possible the 
capable incumbents of office were to be retained in place. In fact — 
Cuba was to be left to its own destiny in a sense far different from that 
intended by the Junta who had posed as representing the Cuban people 
in the cities of the republic. The effect of this assurance would have 
made a prolongation of the war impossible to Spain — for the clemency 
and good sense of the President's prescription, at once diverted the 
masses, who were indifferent to Spain, from any desire to prolong the 
struggle. But for that matter, the conduct of our soldiers, the magnanim- 
ity of the commanders on sea and shore, had made an ineffaceable im- 
pression on Spaniards, not only in Cuba, but in Spain. Indeed, before 
Santiago, the question was asked ; what then are we fighting for ? We 
may hold the Yankees off awhile, but we shall starve presently, why not 
end it? Spain's loud hints and covert pourparlers for peace, had really 
begun as soon as the impossibility of sending Camara's fleet to Manila 
had been made clear. The utter break down of Cervera, and the result- 
ant fall of Santiago, while virtually ending the Spanish defence in this 
hemisphere, redoubled our resources. We had, the instant Cervera's 
fleet was put out of action — a vast sea force ready to despatch to any 
point deemed desirable. 

Then began a fantastic campaign of threats. If Camara persisted in 
sailing for Manila to avenge Montojo's destruction, the fleets that had 
sunk Cervera's ships would be despatched to the coast of Spain. All 
Europe pricked up its ears at this threat. The cables were hot with the 
revelations of the colloguing of the continental powers. The British 
presses, with mock gravity let on to know the secret designs of the 
Washington Cabinet. Europe was informed through these media, that 
the voracious Yankees were bent on possessing a Mediterranean station. 
That Commodore Watson would attack Ceuta, the counterpoise of the 
Spanish fortress held by Great Britian. That he would seize the Canary 
Islands— possibly the most desirable of the Minorca group. That in 
short, the Yankees having tasted the inebriating cup of facile conquest, 
were bent on constituting a chain of possessions about the world, engird- 
ling Europe itself. The Britons professed to regard this evidence that 
the " Americans " were a chip of the old block, with complacency. 




Major General Matt. C. Butler. 



Majo" -General J. Warren Keifer. 




Major-General John R. Brooke. 



Major-General H. C. Merriam. 



THE COMEDY THAT FAILED. 488 

Ceuta in Yankee hands, they reasoned, would be preferable to its trans* 
fer to Fiance. Reasons of the most elaborate and plausible contexture 
were adduced to prove that this was the manifest destiny of the conquer- 
ing republic. Day by day, the preparations of our " Flying squadron " 
were set forth in the British presses and telegraphed by Reuter's and 
other European news agencies, all over the continent. Our own Jingoes 
took up the tale and their exultant shrieks of covetousness were scattered 
broadcast over the continent. 

But the comedy failed. The continental powers had already learned 
the use the British were making of the academic schemes pratted over in 
the various chancelleries. France, Russia and Italy were smarting over 
the perfidy which had made them seem inimical to the United States, 
when the official documents cited by the Italian diplomatic journal, the 
Arena — proved that the only intimation of a purpose to, in any way, in- 
terfere with the war between this country and Spain, was in the form of 
a hint from Great Britain. The outcome however was far from the end 
the intriguers calculated on. The reiterated declarations of the British 
were taken seriously by the Spanish Cabinet. From the first, the states- 
men of Spain had fallen into the trap set bj r the British. They believed 
that the republic was in a sense, the mere protege of the British, that our 
Cabinet was secretly governed by the Tory Cabal. The speeches of 
"Joe " Chamberlain and other demagogues, in the Cabinet and out, were 
proof to the rather punctilious statesmen of the Peninsula, that the open 
patronage of British officials and the flamboyant testimonies in the London 
press, meant that the odious alliance suddenly proclaimed by a Cabinet 
minister, was a fact; that the republic had joined hands in the career of 
spoliation which has given Britain domination. 

The result was, that Camara's fleet was recalled in a panic from its de- 
risive cruise toward Manila. Frantic prayers were sent to Paris to invent 
some way of gaining the ears of the Washington Cabinet, to consider 
peace, on its own terms. This was far from what the British wanted. 
Another half year of war was necessary to enable them to wind us up 
hopelessly in the "imperial" coil they had begun to enmesh us in. But 
more important of all, they had been counting on acting the part of peace- 
maker, after the republic had seized the Canaries, Ceuta and possibly one 
of the Minorca isles. Then, as peacemaker, Britain would have soothed 
the anger of the Yankees and saved some of the captured islands. In 
return, Spain could not refuse the cession of Ceuta, or aid in the British 
seizure of Morocco. But the fright and desperation of the Regent and 
the Cabinet, impelled Spain to swallow her pride and to appeal to France 



484 



SPAIN APPEALS TO FRANCE. 



to intermediate. At the same time the British Ambassador at Madrid- 
Sir Drummond Wolff— began a system of nagging and hints. He de^ 
manded to be made the intermediary, under threat, that if he were not 
selected, Britain would see to it that the Yankees consented to no peace, 
not first approved by the British Cabinet. Desperate as Sagasta was, this 
gave him a flash of the old Spanish spirit. He let the British envoy un- 
derstand that Spain had never suffered more in war than she had when 
governed by a British peace. 

These pourparlers were going on simultaneously with the rendition of 
Santiago — but the 
Washington Cabinet 
was not apprised of the 
part the British were 
playing, until hints of it 
began to appear in the 
foreign press. The San- 
tiago surrender came op- 
portunely for the long 
deferred acceptance of 
the semi-official pro- 
posals for peace. So 
soon as it was known 
thart the President 
would listen to the plea, 
the French ambassador 
was authorized to pre- 
sent Spain's submis- 
sion ; the willingness of 
the Madrid Cabinet to 
comply with any just 
terms the victor might 
prescribe. But — even 
then, the peace came inopportunely— as Porto Rico had not yet been con- 
quered: Hand in hand, with the prolonged preliminaries, the legions of 
Miles were swarming over the undefended leagues of the island. The 
mere word peace brought about a portentous public sentiment. The in- 
stant the millions knew that peace was contingent on our authorities— 
from one end of the land to the other, the cry went up, u Make peace. We 
have won what we set out to gain— the liberation of Cuba, we did not go 
to war for conquest and an hour's delay will be criminal." For a moment, 




JULES CAMBON. 



THE PROTOCOL. 485 

even the Jingo press was abashed into a semblance of decorous modera- 
tion. Peace would be a sensation hardly less inspiring than war. For a 
tune, it would never have been imagined, that every energy of the repub- 
lic had been devoted to slaughter and the mechanism of destruction. The 
French minister, Cambou— knowing the extremities of Spain, made no 
demur over the basis or protocol as it was called. This memorable paper 
embalms the most momentous change ever wrought in the destinies of 
millions of people, who may be said to have had no voice in the events 
that led to its adoption : 

His Excellency M. Cambon, Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister 
Plenipotentiary of the French Republic at Washington, and Mr. WUliam 
R. Day, Secretary of State of the United States, having received i espec- 
tively to that effect plenary powers from the Spanish Government and 
the Government of the United States, have established and sig.ied the 
following articles, which define the terms on which the two Governments 
have agreed with regard to the questions enumerated below, and cf which 
the object is the establishment of peace between the two ccuntries, 
namely : 

Article 1. Spain will renounce all claim to all sovereignty c ver and 
all her rights over the island of Cuba. 

Article 2. Spain will cede to the United States the island (f Porto 
Rico and the other islands which are at present under the sovereignty of 
Spain in the Antilles, as well as an island in the Ladrona Archipelago, to 
be chosen by the United States. 

Article 3. The United States will occupy and retain the city and bay 
of Manila and the port of Manila pending the conclusion of a jreaty of 
peace which shall determine the control and form of government of the 
Philippines. 

Article 4. Spain will immediately evacuate Cuba, Porto Rico, and the 
other islands now under Spanish sovereignty in the Antilles. To this 
effect each of the two Governments will appoint Commissioners within 
ten days after the signing of this protocol, and those Commissioners shall 
meet at Havana within thirty days after the signing of this protocol, with 
the object of coming to an agreement regarding the carrying out of the 
details of the aforesaid evacuation of Cuba and other adjacent Spanish 
islands; each of the two Governments shall likewise appoint within 
ten days after the signature of this protocol other Commissioners, who 
shall meet at San Juan de Porto Rico within thirty days after the 
signature of the protocol to agree upon the details of the evacuation of 
Porto Rico and other islands now under Spanish sovereignty in the Antilles. 



486 THE PARIS COMMISSION. 

Article 5. Spain and the United States shall appoint to treat for peace 
five Commissioners at the most for either country. The Commissioners 
shall meet in Paris on October 1, at the latest, to proceed to negotiations 
and to the conclusion of a treaty of peace. This treaty shall be ratified 
in conformity with the Constitutional laws of each of the two countries. 

Article 6. Once this protocol is concluded and signed hostilities shall 
be suspended, and to that effect in the two countries orders shall be given 
by either Government to the commanders of its land and sea forces as 
speedily as possible. 

Done in duplicate at Washington, read in French and in English by 
the undersigned, who affix at the foot of the document their signatures 
and seals, August 12, 1898. 

Peace came with the signature of this document — but two days after- 
ward the restored cable from Manila brought word that the mock battle 
had been fought between General Merritt and the Spanish garrison. 
Thereupon, controversy arose over the clause regarding Manila — whether 
having obtained it by conquest, it could be subjected to the decisions of 
the commission charged to make the definite treaty in Paris. The event 
let loose the Jingoes again in full cry. " Wherever the flag has been 
raised," they argued, " it would be treason to haul it down." Now the 
flag has been raised in Japan, in China, in the Barbary states, it has been 
raised on many an island in the Pacific, and it has been hauled down. It 
floated over many a mile of Canadian territory, it has floated over miles 
of our northern border and gone down before the exactions of British 
treaty makers. Had Commodore Watson taken his fleets to Cadiz — it might 
have floated over the seaports of Andalusia. The President himself, who 
has never indicated any sympathy with the expansionists — or Jingoes, 
save in the deplorable rape of the Hawaiian islands, set to work to secure 
commissioners equal to the vast interests entrusted them. The selection 
of Judge Day, the Secretary of State — for the Paris commission, was re- 
garded as an indication of wise conservatism— for during his tenure of the 
great place forced upon him, lie exhibited all the reserve, dignity and wise 
conduct of the practiced diplomat. His associates were men not regarded 
as skilled in the intricacies of diplomacy — but in any event, the final de- 
cision of the treaty that must effect the character of this country until 
the end of time, lay in the hands of Congress. The commissioners ap- 
pointed to Cuba and Porto Rico had merely perfunctory duties to perform. 
They verified the property transferred and took possession of the islands 
as Representatives of the Republic. 



IV. 

WAR has become a science so complicated, that its conduct in peace 
even, involves all the mechanism of a vast university. Indeed it 
is doubtful whether Harvard or Oxford are called upon to maintain so 
many subdivisions as the War Department or Navy Department of a 
modern nation. Nominally, the President is commander-in-chief of the 
armies and navies. But the actual duties are performed by the senior 
officer of each service, naval and military. 

When the war with Spain began— President McKinley, who saw some 
service as a subaltern during the Civil War, and knew the need of skilled 
direction in all parts of the vast machine, wisely divested himself of all 
part in the details or plans. To General Miles and the Secretary of 
War, the conduct of the campaign on land was entrusted. For the navy, 
something like the « Aulic " council of Austria was adopted. There was 
a " War Board " consisting of three eminent marines— Rear Admiral 
Sicard, Captains Mahan and Crowninshield. The function of this board 
was of the most comprehensive range and diversity. The character of 
the men selected inspired confidence in the navy. Perhaps the most dis- 
tinguished personage in the body was Captain T. A. Mahan, whose re- 
searches and studies in "Sea power" have given him the rank of expert, 
among the educated of his profession all over the world— or perhaps it 
would be more correct to say, in Great Britain and this country. Ad- 
miral Sicard was of the highest type of the admirable group of great 
sailors produced by the Civil War. 

To these men, the problem was given of finding out what effective 
forces the enemy possessed, and so disposing of our own fleets and even 
armies as to impede, blockade or destroy them. The map of the world, 
therefore was their study by day and night. It was exultingiy pro- 
claimed by Admiral Dewey's delighted comrades, that he had wisely cut 
the Manila cable, in order that he might escape the hampering of the 
War Board. But the Admiral did not thus escape. He went to his post 
instructed in almost every detail by the recommendation of the board- 
put in the shape of orders by Secretary Long. Of course this does not 
mean that a commander is held down to small details. It is the scope 
and interest of the campaign he is expected to follow. Dewey, for exam- 
ple, was charged with finding the Spanish fleet in Oriental waters. 

(487) 



488 THE SCOPE OF THE WAR BOARD. 

When found, he was to attack if the chances were anywhere nearly equal. 
The War Board was responsible for providing the ships ; the admiral in 
charge was responsible for fighting them. The War Board is therefore 
the eyes and ears of a great power at war ; no one man could retain the 
immensity of modern fleets in mind. Napoleon could keep the armies of 
Europe in his head, but he was the only captain that ever could. The 
War Board must keep each responsible commander apprised of the num- 
ber and whereabouts of the adversary. But even prescience cannot 
always do this, for there are endless strategems, that enable a crafty op- 
ponent to misguide. By painting harmless craft to look like war ships; 
by dispersing into unexpected places ; by taking a thousand advantages 
of natural phenomena, a wary opponent may perplex and discomfort a 
superior force and an abler commander. 

For a time, the unwise act of Cervera served as a brilliant piece of 
naval strategy, for the sagacious War Board could not conceive Spain's 
most important fleet, deliberately withdrawing from the conflict, to waste 
its vitalities in a land-locked harbor. It was the penetrating intelligence 
of Admiral Schley that detected the trick and announced the end of the 
fleet — almost the instant it found shelter. For weeks before the war be- 
gan, our consular agents were instructed to make reports on the where- 
abouts of the Spanish men-of-war, in every port in the world. After 
hostilities broke out, our agents were equally indefatigable in reporting 
the presence and movements of Spanish shipping. Not a pound of coal, 
for example, was bought or sold in any part of the world, that the War 
Board was not informed on the instant. Not a vessel could change 
hands that our strategists were not apprised. Every squadron that quit 
a Spanish port, was known, down to the minutest detail. Naturally, thus 
safeguarded, our blockading fleets which were saved the peril of other 
days, when an enemy in force might appear at any point and destroy the 
squadron in detail. Hence, even though the Spanish fleets had outnum- 
bered ours, as the impression ran when the war began, the War Board 
could have assembled a superior force at any endangered point. 

For example, although the fleets of Great Britain outnumber ours 
ten to one, that power would be no more successful in attacking us than 
the Spaniards, because she could never make her oreponderance avail- 
able. We could always meet her squadrons in equal numbers — since her 
base is thousands of miles away: The sea has its strategy as the land 
has. No one ever illustrated this so perfectly as Admiral Farragut. 
And curiously enough, the French at sea have always outgeneraled their 
British rivals, though rarely successful in actual conflict— owing to about 



AT ITS IRON GAME. 489 

the same causes that kept the northern armies second best to the south- 
ern, during the early years of the struggle. The War Board then, must 
know to a ship, all that the enemy can put into the water; it must 
know the exact capacity of each ship, it must even know, or ought to, the 
characteristics of the commanders and the hierarchies of each vessel. It 
was by knowing the characteristics of the commanders opposing him, that 
Napoleon won unhoped for victories. Our War Board knew the sort of 
men we had to depend upon, and from the outset they never doubted 
what the result would be, unless strain, stress or accident should inter- 
vene. Strategy therefore takes in beside the manifold operations of sea 
and land, the forces involved. 

It fell to the War Board to provide for all possible contingencies in the 
harbors that we should find it necessary to attack. To hamper the 
enemy, all cables were cut in Cuban ports — in order that the land forces 
might be isolated — that the various commanders should receive no aid, 
when it became necessary to make an attack by Meet or army. Outside 
of a battlefield, there was no place more suggestive of the work in hand 
than the immense apartment in the navy building — where this fateful 
War Board sat day by day — at its iron game — for it can be likened to 
nothing more suggestive than a vast game of chess with all the seas of 
the world outspread on the walls and tables, and the various devices to 
denominate forces, marking vital points. 

It would require volumes as ample as a cyclopedia to merely enumer- 
ate the masses of detail this extraordinary body was called upon to pass 
upon and digest clearly. Each conjunction compelled a revision of pre- 
vious determinations or modifications of adopted resolutions. For it was 
in this form the work of the board went to the Secretary and from him 
was submitted to the President. Of course this was in the main per- 
functory, as neither President nor Secretary possesses the technical 
knowledge necessary to pass intelligently upon abstruse questions of this 
character. Naturally, men in such a post are garmented in a certain 
fear. In case of disaster, they may be made the victims— as the Aulic 
council was during the century they brought woe upon the Hapsburgs. 
But with such captains as manned our ships, the War Board never had 
cause for apprehension ; there was not a man in authority on Dewey's or 
Schley's fleets, that could not have taken his place on the War Board, 
had there been reason for it. Naturally the Board possesses an occult in- 
fluence, quite beyond its official status. The Secretary of the Navy 
instinctively — or insensibly, comes to see everything done and to be done 
through the eyes of the Board. Hence the slight cloud of favoritism and 



490 SOME HEART-BURNINGS. 

heart-burning over the awards and promotions following the Santiago 
victories. To the lay mind, Admiral Schley was indisputably the hero of 
the fleet. He had " bottled " Cervera and when the great day came, Prov- 
idence so ordered that he was in command of the victorious squadron 
that destroyed the Armada. But as Sampson was nominally the com- 
mander, though not present, he received the official proclamation, award, 
and promotion. As the controversy promises to last as long as the renown 
of the victory, Captain Mafaan's reasoning in Sampson's favor has high 
historic value. In a letter to the public press, while the controversy was 
raging, he set the official view forth in this fashion : 

" At Santiago, all the dispositions prior to action, and for over a month 
before, were made by the Commander in-Chief. A number of orders, 
issued from time to time by him, for the enforcement of the close watch 
of the harbor's mouth, were published in the Washington Post of July 
27, and I presume by other journals as well. There is very strong 
ground for believing that Cervera's attempt to escape by day instead of 
by night — the incident of his conduct which has been most widely cen- 
sured and is most inexplicable — was due to the fact that the United States 
ships kept so close to the harbor mouth at night that a dash like his, 
desperate at best, had a better chance when the ships were at day dis- 
tance. This was so stated, substantially, to Admiral Sampson by the 
Captain of the Colon. If so, the merit of this, forcing the enemy to 
action under disadvantageous conditions — and it is one of the highest 
achievements of military art — belongs to the Commander-in-Chief. It 
ivas the great decisive feature of the campaign, from start to finish. Few 
naval authorities, I imagine, will dispute this statement. 

"It will be noted also, by comparing the report of Admiral Sampson, 
stating the disposition of the ships, with the report of Captain Cook, com- 
manding the Brooklyn, Commodore Schley's flagship, that the United 
States ships chased and fought in the order, from left to right, established 
by Sampson. There is in this no particular merit for the latter, beyond 
that, in placing the two fastest ships, Brooklyn and New York, on the 
two flanks, he had made the best provision for heading off the enemy, 
which the Brooklyn so handsomely effected. But the fact that the ships 
chased as they stood shows that it was unnecessary for Schley to make a 
signal; and in truth, from first to last, the second in command needed to 
make no signal of a tactical character, and made none, so far as is shown 
by his own report, or that of the Captain of the ship. That is, the 
second in command exercised no special directive functions of a flag or 
general officer while the fighting lasted. In this there was no fault, for there 




^ 



i^^-y 




UL± 



NO NEED FOR SIGNALS. 493 

was no need for signals; but the fact utterly does away with any claim to 
particular merit as second in command, without in the least impairing the 
Commodore's credit for conduct in all possible respects gallant and 
officerlike. So far as plan is concerned, the battle was fought on Samp- 
sou s hues; and, to quote Collingwood before Trafalgar, «1 wish Kelson 
would stop signalling, for we all know what we have to do.' The second 
in command and the Captains before Santiago all knew what they had to 
do, and right nobly they all did it. 

'• But the distinctive merit of the series of events which issued in the 
naval battle of Santiago is that, so far as appears, Cervera was forced to 
fight as he did on account of the unrelenting watch, through more than a 
whole moon, including its dark nights, maintained by Admiral Sampson. 
The writer has been told by a naval officer whose name he has not 
authority to mention, but who would be recognized as one of the most 
efficient of his mature years, and who had been off Santiago during part 
of that eventful month, that he regarded Sampson's watch of the harbor 
as the decisive feature in the great result. This neither ignores the 
merits of the Captains nor of the " man behind the gun." But Captains 
and the men behind the guns may be of the best, the Colonels of the 
regiments and the privates of land warfare the same, but vain are their 
valor and their skill if the Commander-in-Chief be wanting in either. 

" With the wise and stringent methods laid down and enforced by the 
Admiral, it would not in the least have mattered, as things happened, 
with such ships and such Captains, had the Commander-in-Chief and the 
second in command, either or both, been seventy miles away. It is ex- 
actly with the fleet as with the single ships. The merit of each Captain 
was not only, nor chiefly, that he handled and fought his ship admirably 
on the day of battle. His greatest merit was that, when he took his ship 
into action, she was so organized and trained that, had he himself been 
absent or struck dead by the first shot, the ship would none the less 
have played her full part efficiently in the fight, under her second in com- 
mand. 

"Few things in the observation of the writer have been more painful 
than the attempt of a portion of the press and of the public to rob 
Sampson of his just and painfully won dues. During the night hours of 
July 2, 3, when there is strong reason to believe that Cervera, despite the 
full moon, wished to come out, the Commander-in-Chief with the whole of 
his force lay close to the harbor's mouth, and the Spanish attempt was 
deferred till day, when it might be supposed from their usual practice that 
the besieging vessels would be more distant, and perhaps off their guard. 



494 ALL THE WORK WAS WELL DONE. 

At four A. M., when day began to break, the Massachusetts, commanded by 
one of the most spirited officers in the service, silently withdrew, to coal 
at Guantanamo, forty miles away. Half an hour before the enemy was 
discovered coming cut, the flagship New York also proceeded west. In 
doing this the Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Sampson, was obeying a 
specific and direct order of the Navy Department, to confer personally 
with the Commander-in-Chief of the army. To this was owing that, to 
use the words of Sampson's despatch, the flagship ' was not at any time 
within range of the heavy Spanish ships.' Upon this circumstance, 
mortifying as a mere disappointment, that the ship, though pushed to her 
utmost speed, could not retrieve her original disadvantage of position — 
incurred in obedience to the orders of the Navy Department— has been 
raised the shameful outcry, designed to deprive an eminent officer of the 
just reward of his toils. 

"The injustice is with many doubtless unintentional and unwitting. 
The same excuse can scarcely be made for the charge that the Admiral 
has grudged praise to his subordinates. Some Washington papers have 
in this matter been particularly vicious, and the Post of that city, in an 
editorial of July 31 to that effect, is guilty, in quoting from one paragraph 
of Sampson's despatch, of suppressing these following words in the suc- 
ceeding paragraph: 'The commanding officers merit the greatest praise 
for the perfect manner in which they entered into this plan [of blockade] 
and put it into execution. The Massachusetts, which, according to 
routine, was sent that morning to coal at Guantanamo, like the others had 
spent weary nights upon this work, and deserved a better fate than to be 
absent that morning.' Again, as regards the action: 'When all the 
work was done so well, it is difficult to discriminate. The object of the 
blockade of Cervera's squadron was fully accomplished, and each in- 
dividual bore well his part in it — the Commodore in command of the 
Second Division, the Captains of ships, their officers and men. The fire 
of the battleships was powerful and destructive and the resistance of the 
Spanish squadron was, in great part, broken almost before they had got 
beyond the range of their own forts.' If higher praise is expected, the 
only reply that can be made is that it is, historically, rarely given. When 
individual men are named, unless some conspicuous and unusual deed 
compels it, those passed over feel slighted ; while, if each who has done 
his duty is individually named, all distinctive effect is lost. Those who 
doubt may examine the despatches of men like Nelson and Farragut." 

In a rather heated polemic that arose over the various degrees of credit 
due the commanders of fleets and ships, the curious anomaly of "Prize 



"THE MOXEY IN IT." 



495 



money and bounties-were for the first time made realistic to the whole 
people. It struck the open-minded as an extraordinary retention of the 
outworn, that our sailors should be left in the mercenary category of old 
and evil times-when the fleets of the world were manned by naval con- 
dottien who took pay and served under any flag that offered the most 
chance for prize money. Indeed, the war had barely begun when the 
newspapers vivaciously set forth the « Money in it " fur the sailormen and 
Captains of the fleets. For weeks the tales swelled and the visions of 
the Klondike adventurers suddenly dimmed before the spoil waiting the 
blockading fleet. Yet, when the allotments were counted it was shown 
that Admiral Sampson, who had not been under fire during the war was 
entitled to $100,000-as his percentage-simply because he commanded 
the seas in which the bulk of the captures had been made. Schley, who 
really destroyed the Spanish fleet had $5,000, or at the utmost $10,000 for 

S1 T.,n.7, ey ' Wh ° destro ? ed SP^'S efficiency as a power-was 
awarded *5 000 ! The odiousness of the system brought about a discus- 
sion that will probably force a change and put the navy on the same con- 
clitions as the army. 

Bounty money differs only from prize money in its origin Prize 
money is awarded for ships and cargoes captured ; bounty money for 
those destroyed. The method of distribution is substantially the same in 
both cases. Under our laws, a prize captured on the high seas is taken 
to the nearest port in which there is a United States court. The vessel 
is "libelled" as a prize, and if the owners wish to contest by proving 
that she is not an enemy, they are permitted to do so. The court decides 
the question, releasing the vessel, if the claim of the contestants is estab- 
lished. If the vessel is declared a lawful prize, the court decides what 
ships are entitled to share in the award. This includes not only those 
which actually made the capture, but ail which were within signalling 
distance with flags by day, or lights by night. Ships near at hand be- 
longing to the same squadron, which might have contributed to the result 
though not actually engaged in the battle, come in for their portion the' 
will being taken for the deed. It is assumed that if their crews had a 
chance they would have displayed as much valor as any others. In the 
case of the destruction of an enemy's warships in battle, the evidence of 
what has taken place is more easy to get, and there are practically no 
court formalities. 

But prize money has been the magnet of many a navy. The British 
could never have manned their vaunted navies— the instruments of loath- 
some oppression, since fleets were first known, if these legalized bucca- 



496 THE LAW IS EXPLICIT. 

neers had not been lured by the spoil of the weak, the cost of the cap- 
tured prizes. The odious system still exists and the rank and file of oui 
victorious fleets in the late war will share a spoil, greater than the wages 
won during the war of the revolution by John Paul Jones, or the war of 
1812 by the glorious captains who humbled British arrogance. More 
than 11,000,000 are due the fleets for the conquest of the Spanish navies. 
This, according to the law, which provides payment of $100 a head for 
every man on the ships of an enemy when these ships are destroyed. 
There is an old adage in the navy about the distribution of money won 
in battle. According to the tars, the money is poured over a ladder and 
all that falls through goes to the officers, and what remains on the rungs 
goes to the sailors ! Nevertheless, every man in the fleets will receive a 
purse small or great, for his part in the campaign. The law governing 
the distribution of this money is explicit. There are exact provisions for 
carrying it into effect, and every man according to his rank, will be paid 
in due season. This statute provides : 

A bounty shall be paid by the United States for each person on board 
any ship or vessel of war belonging to an enemy at the commencement of 
an engagement, which is sunk or otherwise destined in such engage- 
ment, by any ship or vessel belonging to the United States, or which it 
may be necessary to destroy in consequence of injury received in action, 
of #100 if the enemy's vessel was of inferior force, and $200 if of equal 
or superior force, to be divided in the same manner as prize money ; and 
when the actual number of men on board any such vessel cannot be satis- 
factorily ascertained, it shall be estimated according to the complement 
allowed the vessels of its class in the navy of the United States; and 
there shall be paid as bounty to the captors of any vessel of war, captured 
from an enemy, which they may be instructed to destroy or which is im- 
mediately destroyed for the public interest, but not in consequence of 
injuries received in action, $50 for every person who shall be on board at 
the time of such capture. According to this law the officers and men of 
Sampson's fleet will be entitled to $100 for every officer and man on 
board the six Spanish vessels that were destroyed off Santiago. This 
will give prize money in about this proportion: 

Vizcaya 500 

Maria Teresa 500 

Almirante Oquendo 500 

Cristobal Colon 450 

Furor • 67 

Pluton 70 

2v08f 




Major-General J. F. Wade. 



Major-General James H. Wilson. 




Brig. -General H. M. Duffielp, 



Major-General H. T. Kent. 



SHARING THE BOUNTY. 499 

On this reckoning, the treasury will pay to the officers and men of 
Sampson's fleet, 8208,700. Admiral Sampson will receive a lion's share 
of the " Head money." The law explicitly provides that the command- 
ing officer shall have one-twentieth part of all prize money awarded to 
the ships under his immediate command. This will give Admiral Samp- 
son over $10,000 as his share for the work of the three hours. But it 
should be remembered that this is only a part of the extra money that 
Admiral Sampson receives because of the decision of the Navy Depart- 
ment to place him in command over the fleet, thus temporarily jumping 
him over Commodore Schley, who ranked him by several points. Ad- 
miral Sampson receives a share in all prizes captured in the Caribbean 
from the time the war began. The Pedro, one of the captured vessels 
was sold to the government for $200,000— one half of which goes to the 
captors. Out of that prize alone, Admiral Sampson received about $5,- 
000, and it is only one of many valuable prizes that were taken in West 
Indian waters. While the Admiral in command of the fleet must always 
be given his share of prize money, the ships of his fleet can be al- 
lowed to share only when they are within signal distance of the fray, and 
therefore in a position to give effective aid if needed. The New York 
therefore shares in the " Head money." Commodore Schley receives only 
about $4,000 of the lt Head money." The law prescribes that the com- 
manding officer of a division shall receive a one-fiftieth share. The 
United States fleets are organized on a somewhat different plan now, 
than when this law was enacted, so that the Commander of a squadron 
really corresponds to the Commander of a division mentioned in the 
statute. As a commander of a second squadron of the fleet, Commodore 
Schley receives his one-fiftieth part of the " Head money " but Commo- 
dore Howell who was in command of a squadron also receives nothing, 
because he was away at Key West, and his ships were in no position to 
render immediate aid. After these two shares have been taken out, the 
money is apportioned among the vessels of the fleet that took part in the 

engagement. 

The law provides that every commander of a single vessel shall receive 
one tenth part of the prize money awarded to the vessel in his command- 
There were seven big warships in the Santiago battle entitled to share in 
this distribution-the battleships Oregon, Iowa, Indiana, Massachusetts, 
and Texas, and the crusiers New York and Brooklyn. Some smaller 
ships including the Gloucester and the Vixen are entitled to a share, as 
they were warships in the meaning of the law. As there should be about 
),000 left after Admiral Sampson and Schley have been helped, there 
27 



600 BOUNTY FOR SINGLE VESSELS. 

will be something like 125,000 to be distributed on each of these seven 
ships, even after the smaller ships, which were converted yachts have been 
provided for. If this reckoning is approximately correct, Captains Tay- 
lor, Evans, Philip, Chadwick, Higginsou, Clark and Cook will receive 
about $2,500 each as his share. This is on the supposition that each of 
these war vessels is given an equal distribution of the " Head money " 
which seems probable from the fact that they carry about the same com- 
plement of officers and men. 

Number of Number of 

officers. men. 

Iowa, 36 469 

Indiana, 32 441 

Oregon, 32 441 

Massachusetts, 32 441 

Texas 30 359 

New York, 40 516 

Brooklyn, 46 470 

Totals, .... 248 3,137 

After the captain of each ship has been given his share, there will be 
ajmething over thirty officers and about 450 men to share every allot- 
ment of $22,500. For the distribution of these sums, the law provides that 
they shall be divided among the others doing duty on board, borne upon 
the books of the ship in proportion to their respective rates of pay in the 
sorvice. Speaking roughly, about one-half of this remainder will prob- 
ably be required to pay the officers of the ship, excepting the commander, 
and the other half will go to the sailors, who may receive something like 
$20 each. But there is still more coming to the officers and men of 
Sampson's fleet beside the money they receive for destroying Cervera's 
fleet. The Reina Mercedes which was also destroyed off Santiago carried 
875 officers and men, which means $37,500 for distribution. The squad- 
ron doing duty off Havana will receive $30,000 for the destruction of the 
Alphonso XII. as she carried a crew of 300 officers and men. Moreover 
there may be some salvage from the destruction of Cervera's fleet, which 
will go to swell the profit of the crews in West Indian waters. It is 
probable that Congress will have to appropriate money to pay all this in- 
debtedness. It takes considerable time to determine the allotments, and to 
place the amounts due each officer and man, to his credit on the books of 
the navy. The principle is a vicious one ; relic of barbarous age, for it is 



A VICIOUS PRINCIPLE. 



501 



an incitement to mercenary war; the sort of war made infamous in the 
Italian republic, when armies hired themselves to the highest bidder 
An army is never given prize money now for a Gettysburg or a Sedan • 
why should a navy for a Santiago or a Mobile? The system degrades 
our sailors— and certainly never makes patriots. 




BUTTONS WILL COME OFF. 



FORTY years of recrimination followed the British participation of the 
invasion of the Crimea where the wretched French did most of the 
fighting, and the sons of Albion caught up and carried off most of the 
glory and all the advantages. Our own brief essay in foreign conquest 
promises an interminable aftermath of disputation. To enable the reader 
to judge impartially, the official utterances of both battle, siege and camp 
are herewith presented in full. Debating societies and political enthu- 
siasts may turn to these appendices and find the utterances of the chief 
actors, when they find the text hostile to their contentions. This is mak- 
ing a history, virtually an encyclopaedia, and in view of present tend- 
encies, perhaps this is the ultimate expression of historic chroniclings — 
for when all the world thinks, no man is willing to accept the interpre- 
tations of any one man, no matter how wise or self-restrained. 



PART I. NAVAL REPORTS. 
Admiral Dewey's Story of Manila. 

" United States Flagship Olympia, Cavite, Ma}' 4, 1898. 

" The squadron left Mirs Bay on April 27, arrived off' Bolinao on the morn- 
ing of April 30, and, finding no vessels there, proceeded down the coast and 
arrived off the entrance to Manila Bay on the same afternoon. The Boston and 
the Concord were sent to reconnoitre Port Subic. A thorough search was made 
of the port by the Boston and the Concord, but the Spanish fleet was not found. 
Entered the south channel at 11:30 p. M., steaming in column at eight knots. 
After half the squadron had passed, a battery on the south side of the channel 
opened fire, none of the shots taking effect. The Boston and McCulloeh re- 
turned the fire. The squadron proceeded across the bay at slow speed and 
arrived off Manila at daybreak, and was fired upon at 5:15 A. M. by three 
batteries at Manila and two near Cavite, and by the Spanish fleet anchored in 
an approximately east and west line across the mouth of Bakor Bay, with their 
left in shoal water in Canacao Bay. 

" The squadron then proceeded to the attack, the flagship Olympia, under 
my personal direction, leading, followed at a distance by the Baltimore, 
Raleigh, Petrel, Concord, and Boston in the order named, which formation was 
maintained throughout the action. The squadron opened fire at 5:41 A. M. 

(502) 



DEWEY'S STORY OF MANILA. 503 

While advancing to the attack two mines were exploded ahead of the flagship, 
too far to be effective. The squadron maintained a continuous and precise fin 
at ranges varying from 5,000 to 2,000 yards, countermarching in a line approx- 
imately parallel to that of the Spanish fleet. The enemy's fire was vigorous, 
but generally ineffective. Early in the engagement two launches put out 
toward the Olyrapia with the apparent intention of using torpedoes. One was 
sunk and the other disabled by our fire and beached before they were able to 
fire their torpedoes. 

"At seven a. m. the Spanish flagship Reina Cristina made a desperate at 
tempt to leave the line and come out to engage at short range, but was received 
with such a galling fire, the entire battery of the Olympia being concentrated 
upon her, that she was barely able to return to the shelter of the point. The fires 
started in her by our shell at the time were not extinguished until she sank. 
The three batteries at Manila had kept up a continuous fire from the beginning 
of the engagement, which fire was not returned by my squadron. The first of 
these batteries was situated on the south mole head at the entrance of the 
Pasig River, the second on the south position of the walled city of Manila, and 
the third at Molate, about one-half mile further south. At this point I sent a 
message to the Governor-General to the effect that if the batteries did not cease 
firing the city would be shelled. This had the effect of silencing them. 

" At 7:35 a. M. I ceased firing and withdrew the squadron for breakfast. At 
11:16 I returned to the attack. By this time the Spanish flagship and almost 
all the Spanish fleet were in flames. At 12:30 the squadron ceased firing, the 
batteries being silenced and the ships sunk, burned, and deserted. 

" At 12:40 the squadron returned and anchored oft' Manila, the Petrel being- 
left behind to complete the destruction of the smaller gunboats, which were 
behind the point of Cavite. This duty was performed by Commander E. P. 
Wood in the most expeditious and complete manner possible. The Spanish 
lost the following vessels: Sunk, Reina Cristina, Castilla, Don Antonio de 
Ulloa; burned, Don Juan de Austria, Isla de Luzon, Isla de Cuba, General 
Lezo, Marquis del Duero, El Correo, Yelasco, and Isla de Mindanao (transport) ; 
captured, Rapido and Hercules (tugs), and several small launches. 

" I am unable to obtain complete accounts of the enemy's killed and wounded, 
but believe their losses to be very heavy. The Reina Cristina alone had 150 
killed, including the Captain, and ninety wounded. I am happy to report that 
the damage done to the squadron under my command was inconsiderable. 
There were none killed and only seven men in the squadron were slightly 
wounded. Several of the vessels were struck and even penetrated, but the 
damage was of the slightest, and the squadron is in as good condition now as 
before the battle. 

" I beg to state to the department that I doubt if an}' Commander-in-Chief 
was ever served by more loyal, efficient, and gallant Captains than those of the 
squadron now under my command. Captain Frank Wildes, commanding the 



504 ADMIRAL MONTOJO'S REPORT. 

Boston, volunteered to remain in command of his vessel, although his relief 
arrived before leaving Hong Kong. Assistant Surgeon Kindelberger of the 
Olympia and Gunner J. C. Evans, of the Boston, also volunteered to remain 
after orders detaching them had arrived. The conduct of my personal staff 
was excellent. Commander B. P. Lamberton, chief of staff, was a volunteer 
for that position, and gave me most efficient aid. Lieutenant Brumby, Flag 
Lieutenant, and Ensign E. P. Scott, aide, performed their duties as signal 
officers in a highly creditable manner, Caldwell, Flag Secretary, volunteered 
for and was assigned to a sub-division of the five-inch battery. Mr. J. L. Stick- 
ney, formerly an officer in the United States Navy, and now correspondent for 
the New York Herald, volunteered for duty as my aide, and rendered valuable 
service. I desire especially to mention the coolness of Lieutenant C. G. Calk- 
ins, the navigator of the Olympia, who came under my personal observation, 
being on the bridge with me throughout the entire action, and giving the 
ranges to the guns with an accuracy that was proven by the excellence of the 
firing. 

" On May 2, the day following the engagement, the squadron again went to 
Cavite, where it remains. On the 3d the military forces evacuated the Cavite 
arsenal, which was taken possession of by a landing party. On the same daj T 
the Raleigh and the Baltimore secured the surrender of the batteries on 
Corregidor Island, paroling the garrison and destroying the guns. On the 
morning of May 4, the transport Manila, which had been aground in Bakor Bay, 
was towed off and made a prize." 



Admiral Montojo's Report. 

" Manila, May 7th. 

" I have to report the destruction of the fleet under my command by a su- 
perior number of American battleships. 

" The force of these vessels, excepting transports that were non-combatant, 
amounted to 21,410 tons, 49,290 horse power, 163 guns (many of which were 
rapid fire), 1,750 men in their crews, and of an average speed of about seven- 
teen miles. The power of our only five effective ships for battle was repre- 
sented by 10,111 tons, 11,200 horse power, seventy-six guns (very short of 
rapid fire), 1,875 crew, and a maximum speed of twelve miles. 

" The Americans fired most rapidly. There came upon us numberless pro- 
jectiles, as the three cruisers at the head of the line devoted themselves almost 
entirely to fight the Cristina, my flagship. A short time after the action com- 
menced one shell exploded in the forecastle and put out of action all those who 
served the four rapid fire cannon, making splinters of the forward mast, which 
wounded the helmsman on the bridge, when Lieutenant Jose Nunez took the 
wheel with a coolness worthy of the greatest commendation, steering until the 
end of the fight. 



ADMIRAL MONTOJO'S REPORT. 505 

" In the meanwhile another shell exploded in the orlop, setting fire to the 
crew's bags, which they were, fortunately, able to control 

" The enemy shortened the distance between us, and, rectifying his aim, cov- 
ered us with a rain of rapid fire projectiles. 

" At half-past seven one shell destroyed completely the steering geer. I 
ordered to steer by hand while the rudder was out of action. In the mean- 
while another shell exploded on the poop and put out of action nine men. 
Another destroyed the mizzenmast head, bringing down the flag and my en- 
sign, which were replaced immediately. 

" A fresh shell exploded in the officers' cabin, covering the hospital with 
blood, destroying the wounded who were being treated there. Another ex- 
ploded in the ammunition room astern, filling the quarters with smoke and pre- 
venting the working of the hand steering gear. As it was impossible to con- 
trol the fire, I had to flood the magazine when the cartridges were beginning to 
explode. 

" Amidships, several shells of smaller calibre went through the smokestack, 
and one of the large ones penetrated the fireroom, putting out of action one 
master gunner and twelve men serving the guns. 

" Another rendered useless the starboard bow gun. While the fire astern in- 
creased, fire was started forward by another shell, which went through the hull 
and exploded on the deck. 

" The broadside guns, being undamaged, continued firing until there we. 
onty one gunner and one seaman remaining unhurt for firing them, as the guns- 
crews had been frequently called upon to substitute those charged with steer- 
ing, all of whom were out of action. 

" The ship being out of control, the hull, smokepipe and masts riddled with 
shot, half of her crew out of action, among whom were seven officers, I gave 
the order to sink and abandon the ship before the magazines should explode, 
making signal at the same time to the Cuba and Luzon to assist in saving the 
rest of the crew, which they did, aided by others from the Duro and the arse- 
nal. 

" I abandoned the Cristina, directing beforehand to secure her flag, and, ac- 
companied by my staff, and with great sorrow, I hoisted my flag on the cruiser 
Isla de Cuba. 

" After having saved many men from the unfortunate vessel, one shell de- 
stroyed her heroic commander, Don Luis Cadaraso, who was directing the 
rescue. 

" The Ulloa, which also defended herself firmty, using the only two guns 
which were available, was sunk by a shell, which entered at the water line, put- 
ting out of action her commander and half of her remaining crew, those who 
were only remaining for the service of the two guns stated. 

" The Castilla, which fought heroically, with her artillery useless, except one 
stern gun, with which they fought spiritedly, was riddled with shot and set on 



506 THE DIARIO DE MANILA. 

fire by the enemy's shells, then sunk, and was abandoned by her crew, in good 
order, which was directed by her commander, Don Alonzo Algaro. The casual- 
ties on this ship were twenty -three killed and eighty wounded. 

" The Austria, very much damaged and on fire, went to the aid of the Castilla. 
The Luzon had three guns dismounted and was slightly damaged in the hull. 
The Duro remained, with one of her engines useless, the bow gun and one of 
the redoubts. 

" At eight o'clock in the morning, the enemy's squadron having suspended 
its fire, I ordered the ships that remained to us to take positions in the bottom 
of the roads, at Bacoor, and there to resist to the last moment, and that they 
should be sunk before they surrendered. 

" At half-past ten the enemy returned forming a circle to destroy the arsenal, 
and the ships which remained to me, opening upon them a horrible fire, which 
we answered as far as we could with the few cannon which we still had 
mounted. 

" There remained the last recourse — to sink our vessels — and we accom- 
plished this operation, taking care to save the flag, the distinguishing pennant, 
the money in the safe, the portable arms, the breech plugs of the guns, and the 
signal codes, after which I went, with my staff, to the convent of Santo Domingo 
de Cavite to be cured of a wound received in the left leg, and to telegraph a 
brief report of the action, with preliminaries and results. 

" The inefficiency of the vessels which composed my little squadron, the lack 
of all classes of the personnel, especially master gunners and seaman gunners, 
the inaptitude of some of the provisional machinists, the scarcity of rapid fire 
cannon, the strong crews of the enemy, and the unprotected character of the 
greater part of our vessels, all contributed to make more decided the sacrifice 
which we made for our country. 

" Our casualties, including those of the arsenal, amounted to 381 men killed 
and wounded." 

Report of the Diario De Manila. 

" As the sun rose above the clouds and mist that overhung our shores on the 
morning of May 1, the inhabitants of Manila saw with surprise and dismay 
the enemy's squadron in well-ordered line of battle on the waters of the bay. 
Who could have imagined that they would have had the rashness to stealthily 
approach our shores, provoking our defenders to an unavailing display of skill 
and valor, in which, alas, balls could not be propelled by heart-throbs, else the 
result would have been different ? The sound of the shots from our batteries 
and those from the enemy's ships, which awakened the citizens of Manila at 
five o'clock on that May morning, transformed the character of our peaceful 
and happy surroundings. Frightened at the prospect of dangers that seemed 
greater than they were, women and children in carriages, or by whatever 
means they could, sought refuge in the outskirts of the city, while all the men, 



THE DIARIO DE MANILA. 507 

from the highest to the lowest, the merchant and the mechanic, the soldier and 
the peasant, the dwellers of the mainland and those of the coast, repaired to 
their posts and took up arms, confident that never, except by passing over their 
dead bodies, should the soil of Manila be defiled by the enemy, notwithstanding 
that from the first it was apparent that the armored ships and powerful guns 
were invulnerable to any effort at our command. Before entering our port the 
enemy had well assured himself of his superiority over our defences. 

" The walls of the public square, the towers of the churches, the upper stories 
of houses, and every place that commanded a view of the bay were thronged 
by eager spectators. 

" The shots from the batteries and plaza produced no impression upon the 
cruisers. The spectators on the shore, with and without glasses, continued to 
scan the advancing enemy, who, although he may have been brave, had no oc- 
casion to show it, since the range of his guns and the deficiencies of our artil- 
lery enabled him to do all the harm he wished with impunity. ... A sol- 
dier of the First Battalion of Sharpshooters, who saw the squadron so far out 
of range of our batteries, said, glancing up to Heaven, ' If the Holy Mary 
would only transform that water into land, then the Yankees would see how we 
could fight ! ' And a Malay, squatting near by, exclaimed, ' Let them land, and 
we will crush them under heel ! ' Meanwhile the enemy proceeded with speed 
and safety, in perfect formation, toward Cavite, with the decision born of se- 
curity. 

"... From Manila we could see, by the aid of glasses, the two squadrons 
almost confounded and enveloped in clouds of smoke. Owing to the infe- 
riority of our batteries, it was evident that the enemy was triumphant and se- 
cure in his armored strength ; he was a mere machine, requiring only motive 
power to keep in action his destructive agencies. . . . Who can describe 
the heroic acts, the prowess, the deeds of valor performed by the sailors of our 
squadron as rage animated them? All who were beneath the folds of the ban- 
ner of Spain did their duty as becomes the chosen sons of the fatherland. 

" A thick column of smoke burst out of the forward storeroom hatch of the 
Cristina, indicating that an incendiary projectile, of the kind prohibited by 
Divine and human laws, had taken effect in the cruiser. Without ceasing her 
fire, she retired toward the shore and was scuttled to avoid falling into the 
Yankees' hands. The indignation of the sailors of the Cristina was raised to 
the highest pitch at seeing the Castilla on fire from the same incendiary causes. 
The Spanish vessels that had not succumbed to the flames or the shots of the 
enemy were run aground, as they could not be disposed of in any other way. 
This was the last stroke; we could do no more, the combat of Cavite was 
ended, and our last vessel went down Hying her colors. A list of the Spanish 
killed and wounded is given, and high praise is awarded to the defenders of the 
batteries at Manila and Cavite." 



508 ADMIRAL SAMPSON'S REPORT. 

THE FLEET AT SANTIAGO. 

Report of the Commander-in-Chief, North Atlantic Station. 

" United States Flagship New York, First Rate, 
" Off Santiago de Cuba, July 15, 1898. 
To the Secretary of the Navy. 

" Sir : 1. I have the honor to make the following report upon the battle with 
and the destruction of the Spanish squadron, commanded by Admiral Cervera, 
off Santiago de Cuba, on Sunday, July 3, 1898. 

" 2. The enemy's vessels came out of the harbor between 9:35 and ten a. m., 
the head of the column appearing around Cay Smith at 9:31, and emerging 
from the channel five or six minutes later. 

" 3. The positions of the vessels of my command off Santiago at that mo- 
ment were as follows : The flagship New York was four miles east of her 
blockading station and about seven miles from the harbor entrance. She had 
started for Siboney, where I intended to land, accompanied by several of my 
staff, and go to the front to consult with General Shafter. A discussion of the 
situation and a more definite understanding between us of the operations pro 
posed had been rendered necessary by the unexpectedly strong resistance of tht 
Spanish garrison of Santiago. I had sent my chief of staff on shore the day be- 
fore to arrange an interview with General Shafter, who had been suffering from 
heat prostration. I made arrangements to go to his headquarters, and my 
flagship was in the position mentioned above when the Spanish squadron ap- 
peared in the channel. The remaining vessels were in or near their usual 
blockading positions, distributed in a semicircle about the harbor entrance, 
counting from the eastward to the westward, in the following order: The In- 
diana, about a mile and a half from shore ; the Oregon — the New York's place 
between these two — the Iowa, Texas, and Brooklyn, the latter two miles from 
the shore west of Santiago. The distance of the vessels from the harbor 
entrance was from two and one-half to four miles, the latter being the limit of 
day blockading distance. The length of the arc formed by the ships was about 
eight miles. The Massachusetts had left at four A. m. for Guantanamo for coal. 
Her station was between the Iowa and Texas. The auxiliaries Gloucester and 
Vixen lay close to the land and nearer the harbor entrance than the large ves- 
sels, the Gloucester to the eastward and the Vixen to the westward. The tor- 
pedo boat Ericsson was in company with the flagship, and remained with her 
during the chase until ordered to discontinue, when she rendered very efficient 
service in rescuing prisoners from the burning Vizcaya. I inclose a diagram 
showing approximately the positions of the vessels as described above. 

" 4. The Spanish vessels came rapidly out of the harbor, at a speed esti- 
mated at from eight to ten knots, and in the following order : Infanta Maria 
Teresa (flagship), Vizcaya, Cristobal Colon, and the Almirante Oquendo. The 



ADMIRAL SAMPSON'S REPORT. 509 

distance between these ships was about 800 yards, which means that, from the 
time the first one became visible in the upper reach of the channel until the last 
one was out of the harbor, an interval of only about twelve minutes elapsed. 
Following the Oquendo, at a distance of about 1,200 yards, came the torpedo 
boat destroyer Pluton, and after her the Furor. The armored cruisers as 
rapidly as they could bring their guns to bear, opened a vigorous fire upon 'the 
blockading vessels, and emerged from the channel shrouded in the smoke from 
their guns. 

" 5. The men of our ships in front of the port were at Sunday ' quarters for 
inspection.' The signal was made simultaneously from several vessels, 
'Enemy's ships escaping,' and general quarters was sounded. The men' 
cheered as they sprang to their guns, and fire was opened probably within eight 
minutes by the vessels whose guns commanded the entrance. The New York 
turned about and steamed for the escaping fleet, flying the signal < Close in to- 
ward harbor entrance and attack vessels,' and gradually increasing speed, until 
toward the end of the chase she was making sixteen and one-half knots, and 
was rapidly closing on the Cristobal Colon. She was not at any time within 
range of the heavy Spanish ships, and her only part in the firing was to receive 
the undivided fire from the forts in passing the harbor entrance and to fire a 
few shots at one of the destroyers, thought at the moment to be attempting to 
escape from the Gloucester. 

" 6. The Spanish vessels, upon clearing the harbor, turned to the westward 
in column, increasing their speed to the full power of their engines The 
heavy blockading vessels, which had closed in toward the Morro at the instant 
of the enemy's appearance, and at their best speed, delivered a rapid fire well 
sustained and destructive, which speedily overwhelmed and silenced the 
Spanish fire. The initial speed of the Spaniards carried them rapidly past the 
blockading vessels, and the battle developed into a chase, in which the 
Brooklyn and the Texas had at the start the advantage of position. The 
Brooklyn maintained this lead. The Oregon, steaming with amazing speed 
from the commencement of the action, took first place. The Iowa and Indiana, 
having done good work, and not having the speed of the other ships, were di- 
rected by me in succession, at about the time the Vizcaya was beached, to 
drop out of the chase and resume blockading stations. These vessels rescued 
many prisoners. The Vixen, finding that the rush of the Spanish ships would 
put her between two fires, ran outside of our column and remained there during 
the battle and chase. 

" 7. The skilful handling and gallant fighting of the Gloucester excited the 
admiration of every one who witnessed it, and merits the commendation of the 
Navy Department. She is a fast and entirely unprotected auxiliary vessel— 
the yacht Corsair-and has a good battery of light rapid-fire guns. She was 
lying about two miles from the harbor entrance, to the southward and east- 
ward, and immediately steamed in, opening fire upon the large ships. An- 



510 ADMIRAL SAMPSON'S REPORT. 

ticipating the appearance of the Pluton and Furor, the Gloucester was slowed, 
thereby gaining more rapidly a high pressure of steam, and when the destroy- 
ers came out she steamed for them at full speed, and was able to close at short 
range, when her fire was most deadly and of great volume. During this fight 
the Gloucester was under the fire of the Socapa battery. Within twenty 
minutes from the time they emerged from Santiago Harbor the careers of the 
Furor and the Pluton were ended and two-thirds of their people killed. The 
Furor was beached and sunk in the surf; the Pluton sank in deep water a few 
minutes later. The destroyers probably suffered much injury from the fire of 
the secondary batteries of the battleships Iowa, Indiana, and the Texas, yet I 
think a very considerable factor in their speedy destruction was the fire at 
close range of the Gloucester's battery. After rescuing the survivors of the 
destroyers, the Gloucester did excellent service in landing and securing the 
crew of the Infanta Maria Teresa. 

" 8. The method of escape attempted by the Spaniards, all steering in the 
same direction, and in formation, removed all tactical doubt or difficulties, and 
made plain the duty of every United States vessel to close in, immediately en- 
gage, and pursue. This was promptly and effectively done. As already 
stated, the first rush of the Spanish squadron carried it past a number of the 
blockading ships, which could not immediately work up to their best speed ; 
but they suffered heavily in passing, and the Infanta Maria Teresa and the 
Oquendo were probably set on fire by shells fired during the first fifteen 
minutes of the engagement. It was afterward learned that the Infanta Maria 
Teresa's fire main had been cut by one of our first shots and that she was un- 
able to extinguish fire. With large volumes of smoke rising from their lower 
decks aft, these vessels, gave up both fight and flight, and ran in on the beach, 
the Infanta Maria Teresa at about 10:15 A. M., at Nima, six and one-half miles 
from Santiago Harbor entrance, and the Almirante Oquendo at about 10:30 A. 
m., at Juan Gonzales, seven miles from the port. 

" 9. The Vizcaya was still under the fire of the leading vessels ; the Cristo- 
bal Colon had drawn ahead, leading the chase, and soon passed beyond the 
range of the guns of the leading American ships ; the Vizcaya was soon set on 
fire, and at 11:15 she turned inshore and was beached at Aserradero, fifteen 
miles from Santiago, burning fiercely, and with her reserves of ammunition on 
deck already beginning to explode. When about ten miles west of Santiago 
the Indiana had been signalled to go back to the harbor entrance, and at 
Aserradero the Iowa was signalled to ' Resume blockading station.' The Iowa s 
assisted by the Ericsson and the Hist, took off the crew of the Vizcaya, while the 
Harvard and the Gloucester rescued those of the Infanta Maria Teresa and the 
Almirante Oquendo. This rescue of prisoners, including the wounded, from 
the burning Spanish vessels, was the occasion of some of the most daring and 
gallant conduct of the day. The ships were burning fore and aft, their guns 
and reserve ammunition were exploding, and it was not known at what moment 



ADMIRAL SAMPSON'S REPORT. 511 

the fire would reach the main magazines. In addition to this, a heavy surf 
was running just inside of the Spanish ships. But no risk deterred our officer? 
and men until their work of humanity was complete. 

" 10. There remained now of the Spanish ships only the Cristobal Colon 
but she was their best and fastest vessel. Forced by the situation to hug the 
Cuban coast, her only chance of escape was by superior and sustained speed. 
When the Vizcaya went ashore, the Colon was about six miles ahead of the 
Brooklyn and the Oregon ; but her spurt was finished, and the American ships 
were now gaining upon her. Behind the Brooklyn and the Oregon came 
the Texas, Vixen, and New York. It was evident from the bridge of the 
New York that all the American ships were gradually overhauling the chase 
and that she had no chance of escape. At 12:50 the Brooklyn and the Orgeon 
opened fire and got her range, the Oregon's heavy shell striking beyond her, 
and at 1:20 she gave up without firing another shot, hauled down her colors, 
and ran ashore at Rio Tarquino, forty-eight miles from Santiago. Captain 
Cook, of the Brooklyn, went on board to receive the surrender. While his 
boat was alongside I came up in the New York, received his report, and placed 
the Oregon in charge of the wreck to save her if possible, and directed the 
prisoners to be transferred to the Resolute, which had followed in the chase. 
Commodore Schley, whose chief of staff had gone on board to receive the sur- 
render, had directed that all their personal effects should be retained by the 
officers. This order I did not modify. The Cristobal Colon was not injured 
by our firing, and probably is not much injured by beaching, though she ran 
ashore at high speed. The beach was so steep that she came off by the work- 
ing of the sea. But her sea valves were opened and broken treacherously, I 
am sure, after her surrender, and despite all efforts, she sank. When it became 
evident that she could not be kept afloat, she was pushed by the New York 
bodily upon the beach, the New York's stem being placed against her for this 
purpose, the ship being handled by Captain Chadwick with admirable judg- 
ment, and sank in shoal water, and may be saved. Had this not been done, 
she would have gone down in deep water and would have been to a certainty a 
total loss. 

"11. I regard this complete and important victory over the Spanish forces 
as the successful finish of several weeks of arduous and close blockade, so 
stringent and effective during the night that the enemy was deterred from 
making the attempt to escape at night, and deliberately elected to make the at- 
tempt in daylight. That this was the case I was informed by the commanding 
officer of the Cristobal Colon. 

" 12. It seems proper to briefly describe here the manner in which this was 
accomplished. The harbor of Santiago is naturally easy to blockade, there be 
ing but one entrance, and that a narrow one ; and the deep water extendin; 
close to the shore line presenting no difficulties of navigation outside of th( 
entrance. At the time of ray arrival before the port— June 1,— the mooi. 



512 ADMIRAL SAMPSON'S REPORT. 

was at its full, and there was sufficient light during the night to enable any 
movement outside of the entrance to be detected ; but with the waning of the 
moon and the coming of dark nights, there was opportunity for the enemy to 
escape, or for his torpedo boats to make an attack upon the blockading vessels. 
It was ascertained with fair conclusiveness that the Merrimac, so gallantly 
taken into the channel on June 3, did not obstruct it. I therefore maintained 
the blockade as follows : To the battleships was assigned the duty, in turn, of 
lighting the channel. Moving up to the port at a distance of from one to two 
miles from the Morro, dependent upon the condition of the atmosphere, they 
threw a searchlight beam directly up the channel, and held it steadily there. 
This lighted up the entire breadth of the channel for half a mile inside of the 
entrance so brilliantly that the movement of small boats could be detected. 
Why the batteries never opened fire upon the searchlight ship was always a 
matter of surprise to me ; but they never did. Stationed close to the entrance 
of the port were three picket vessels, usually converted yachts, and, when they 
were available, one or two of our torpedo boats. With this arrangement there 
was at least a certainty that nothing could get out of the harbor undetected. 
After the arrival of the army, when the situation forced upon the Spanish 
admiral a decision, our vigilance increased. The night blockading distance 
was reduced to two miles for all vessels, and a battleship was placed alongside 
the searchlight ship, with her broadside trained upon the channel, in readiness 
to fire the instant a Spanish ship should appear. The commanding officers 
merit the greatest praise for the perfect manner in which they entered into this 
plan and put it into execution. The Massachusetts, which, according to 
routine, was sent that morning to coal at Guantanamo, like the others, had 
spent weary nights upon this work, and deserved a better fate than to be absent 
that morning. I inclose, for the information of the department, copies of 
orders and memoranda issued from time to time, relating to the manner of 
maintaining the blockade. 

" 13. When all the work was done so well, it is difficult to discriminate in 
praise. The object of the blockade of Cervera's squadron was fully accom- 
plished, and each individual bore well his part in it— the commodore in com- 
mand of the second division, the captains of ships, their officers and men. 
The fire of the battleships was powerful and destructive, and the 
resistance of the Spanish squadron was, in great part, broken almost before 
they had got beyond the range of their own forts. The fine speed of the 
Oregon enabled her to take a front position in the chase, and the Cristobal 
Colon did not give up until the Oregon had thrown a thirteen-inch shell be- 
yond her. This performance adds to the already brilliant record of this fine 
battleship and speaks highly of the skill and care with which her admirable 
efficiency has been maintained during a service unprecedented in the history of 
vessels of her class. The Brooklyn's westerly blockading position gave her an 
advantage in the chase, which she maintained to the end, and she employed her 



APMIRAT, SAMPSON'S REPORT. 513 

fine battery -with telling effect. The Texas and the New York were gaining 
on the chase during the last hour, and had any accident befallen the Brooklyn 
or the Oregon, would have speedily overhauled the Cristobal Colon. From the 
moment the Spanish vessel exhausted her first burst of speed the result was 
never in doubt. She fell, in fact, far below what might reasonably have been 
expected of her. Careful measurements of time and distance give her an 
average speed, from the time she cleared the harbor mouth until the time she 
was run ashore at Rio Tarquino, of 13.7 knots. Neither the New York nor 
the Brooklyn stopped to couple up their forward engines, but ran out the chase 
w r ith one pair, getting steam, of course, as rapidly as possible on all boilers. 
To stop to couple up the forward engines would have meant a delay of fifteen 
minutes, or four miles in the chase. 

" 14. Several of the ships were struck, the Brooklyn more often than the 
others, but verj r slight material injury was done, the greatest being abroad the 
Iowa. Our loss was one man killed and one wounded, both on the Brooklyn. 
It is difficult to explain this immunity from loss of life or injury to ships in a 
combat with modern vessels of the best type ; but Spanish gunnery is poor at 
best, and the superior w r eight and accuracy of our fire speedily drove the men 
from their guns and silenced their fire. This is borne out by the statements of 
prisoners and by observation. The Spanish vessels, as they dashed out of the 
harbor, were covered with the smoke from their own guns, but this speedily 
diminished in volume, and soon almost disappeared. The fire from the rapid- 
fire batteries of the battleships appears to have been remarkably destructive. 
An examination of the stranded vessels shows that the Almirante Oquendo 
especially had suffered terribly from this fire. Her sides are everywhere 
pierced, and her decks were strewn with the charred remains of those who had 
fallen. 

" 15. The reports of Commodore W. S. Schley and of the commanding of- 
ficers are enclosed. 

"16. A board, appointed by me several days ago, has made a critical ex- 
amination of the stranded vessels, both with a view of reporting upon the 
result of our fire and the military features involved, and of reporting upon the 
chance of saving any of them and of wrecking the remainder. The report of 
board will be speedily forwarded. Yery respectfully, 

" W. T. Sampson, 

" Rear Admiral, U. S. Navy, Commander-in-Chief, U. S. Naval For<w, North 
Atlantic Station." 



514 ADMIRAL SAMPSON'S REPORT. 

Inclosures in the Report. 

The Admiral made these inclosures in his report : 

order of battle. 
" United States Flagship New York, First Rate, 
" Off Santiago de Cuba, June 2, 1898. 

" The fleet off Santiago de Cuba will be organized during the operations 
against that port and the Spanish squadron as follows : 

" First Squadron — Under the personal command of the Commander-in- 
Chief: New York, Iowa, Oregon, New Orleans, Mayflower, Porter. 

" Second Squadron — Commodore Schley : Brooklyn, Massachusetts, Texas, 
Marblehead, Vixen. 

" Vessels joining subsequently will be assigned by the Commander-in-Chief. 
The vessels will blockade Santiago de Cuba closely, keeping about six miles 
from the Morro in the daytime and closing in at night, the lighter vessels well 
in shore. The first squadron will blockade on the east side of the port and the 
second squadron on the west side. If the enemy tries to escape the ships must 
close and engage as soon as possible and endeavor to sink his vessels or force 
them to run ashore in the channel. It is not considered that the shore bat- 
teries are of sufficient power to do anj' material injury to battleships. 

" In smooth weather the vessels will coal on station. If withdrawn to coal 
elsewhere, or for other duty, the blockading vessels on either side will cover 
the angle thus left vacant. . Very respectfully, 

" W. T. Sampson, 
" Rear Admiral U. S. Navy, Commander-in-Chief U. S. Naval Force, North 

Atlantic Station." 

memorandum no. 13. 
" United States Flagship New York, First Rate, 

" Off Santiago de Cuba, June 7, 1898. 

" After careful consideration of the various schemes of maintaining an effec- 
tive blockade of Santiago de Cuba at night, which have been advanced, I have 
decided upon the following, which will be maintained until further orders : 

" The weather permitting, three (3) picket launches, detailed from the ships 
of the squadron each evening, will occupy positions one mile from the Morro, 
one to the eastward, one to the westward and one south of the harbor entrance. 
On a circle drawn with a radius of two miles from the Morro will be stationed 
three vessels, the Vixen to the westward, from one-half mile to one mile from 
the shore; the Suwanee south of Morro and the Dolphin to the eastward, be- 
tween one-half mile and one mile from the shore. The remaining vessels will 
retain the positions already occupied, but they will take especial care to keep 
within a four-mile circle. 



ADMIRAL SAMPSON'S REPORT. 515 

" All vessels may turn their engines whenever desirable to keep them in 
readiness for immediate use, and while doing so may turn in a small circle, but 
without losing proper bearing or distance. 

" The signal for an enemy will be two (2) red Very lights fired in rapid 
succession. If the enemy is a torpedo boat, these two red lights will be fol- 
lowed by a green light. 

"I again call attention to the absolute necessity of a close blockade of this 
port, especially at night and in bad weather. In the daytime, if clear the dis- 
tance shall not be greater than six miles. At night or in thick weather not 
more than Jour miles. The end to be attained justifies the risk of torpedo at- 
tack, and that risk must be taken. The escape of the Spanish vessels at this 
juncture would be a serious blow to our prestige, and to a speedy end of the 



war 



" Attention is called to the provisional signals established by General Order 
No - 9 - Very respectfully, 

" W. T. Sampson, 
Rear Admiral U. S. Navy, Commander-in-Chief U. S. Naval Force, North 
Atlantic Station." 

memorandum no. 14. 
" United States Flagship New York, First Rate, 
" Off Santiago de Cuba, June 8, 1898. 

" During the dark hours of the night searchlights will be used as follows : 

" The Iowa, Oregon and the Massachusetts will take turns of two hours 
each, *. e., from dark to eight P. m., and from eight p. m. to ten p. m., &c. in 
keeping one searchlight directly on the harbor entrance, maintaining carefully 
during that time their blockading positions. Should a vessel's lights fail the 
next in order will at once take up the duty. 

" The picket launch and vidette, stationed south of the Morro, will move to 
one side or the other sufficiently to get clear of the beam of light. 

" The vessel on each flank, the Brooklyn and the Texas on °he western side, 
the New York and New Orleans on the eastern side, will take two hour turns' 
in using one searchlight from time to time on the coast line, swinging it to- 
ward the Morro, but avoiding the illumination of the flanking videttes on the 
inside line. The light should never be turned off more than five minutes at a 
time. From time to time the horizon outside will be swept. 

" Attention is called to bad and careless handling of searchlights. Last 
night some of the lights were kept high in the air and were again swept 
rapidly from side to side. Under such circumstances a searchlight is worse 
than useless. 

" The beams must be directed to the horizon, and must be moved very 
steadily and slowly. Not less than three minutes should be employed in 
sweeping through an arc of ninety degrees. 
28 



516 ADMIRAL SAMPSON'S REPORT. 

" The best way to discover a torpedo boat is by its smoke, and even this will 
not be seen unless the light is very well handled. Very respectfully, 

" W. T. Sampson, 
" Rear Admiral U. S. Navy, Commander-in-Chief U. S. Naval Force, North 

Atlantic Station." 

memorandum no. it. 
" United States Flagship New York, First Rate, 
" Off Santiago de Cuba, June 11, 1S98. 
" Sir : When on the blockade vessels will, unless for some special tempor- 
ary reason for the contrary, habitually head toward the land instead of away 
from it. Very respectfully, 

" W. T. Sampson, 
" Rear Admiral U. S. Navy, Commander-in-Chief U. S. Naval Force, North 
Atlantic Station. 
" The Commanding Officer, TJ. S. S. " 

memorandum no. 18. 
" United States Flagship New York, First Rate, 
" Off Santiago de Cuba, June 12, 1898. 
" Sir: 1. While blockading the Spanish fleet in Santiago de Cuba vessels 
will hereafter maintain a blockading distance of four miles during the daytime. 
" 2. This distance will not be exceeded except by permission or under special 
circumstances. Very respectfully, 

" W. T. Sampson, 
" Rear Admiral U. S. Navy, Commander-in-Chief U. S. Naval Force, North 
Atlantic Station. 
u The Commanding Officer, U. S. S. ." 

memorandum no. 20. 
" United States Flagship New York, First Rate, 
" Off Santiago de Cuba, June 15, 1898. 
" Sir : 1. The Commander-in-Chief desires again to call the attention of 
commanding officers to the positions occupied by the blockading fleet, especially 
during the daytime, and it is now directed that all ships keep within a dis- 
tance of the entrance to Santiago of four miles, and this distance must not be 
exceeded. 

" 2. If the vessel is coaling or is otherwise restricted in her movements she 
must nevertheless keep within this distance. 

" 3. If at any time the flagship makes signal which is not visible to any 
vessel, such vessel must at once approach the flagship or repeating vessel to a 
point where she can read the signal. 

" 4. Disregard of the directions which have already been given on this head 



COMMODORE SCHLEY'S REPORT. 517 

has led to endless confusion. Many times during the day the fleet is so scat- 
tered that it would be perfectly possible for the enemy to come out of the har- 
bor and meet with very little opposition. 

" 5. The Commander-in-Chief hopes that strict attention will be given this 
order. Very respectfully, 

" W. T. Sampson, 
" Rear Admiral U. S. Navy, Commander-in-Chief U. S. Naval Force, North 

Atlantic Station. 

" The Commanding Officer, U. S. S. ." 



Commodore Schley's Report. 

" North Atlantic Fleet, Second Squadron, 

" United States Flagship Brooklyn, 
" Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, July 6, 1898. 

" Sir : 1. I have the honor to make the following report of that part of the 
squadron under your command which came under my observation during the 
engagement with the Spanish fleet on July 3, 1898. 

" 2. At 9:35 a. m. Admiral Cervera, with the Infanta Maria Teresa, Vizcaya, 
Oquendo, Cristobal Colon, and two torpedo-boat destroyers, came out of the 
harbor of Santiago de Cuba in column at distance and attempted to escape to 
the westward. Signal was made from the Iowa that the enemy was coming 
out, but this movement had been discovered from this ship at the same moment. 
This vessel was the farthest west, except the Vixen, in the blockading line. 
Signal was made to the western division as prescribed in your general orders, 
and there was immediate and rapid movement inward by your squadron and a 
general engagement at ranges beginning at eleven hundred yards and varying 
to three thousand, until the Vizcaya was destroyed, about 10:50 A. M. The 
concentration of the fire of the squadron upon the ships coming out was most 
furious and terrific and great damage was done them. 

" 3. About twenty or twenty-five minutes after the engagement began, two 
vessels, thought to be the Teresa and Oquendo, and since verified as such, took 
fire from the effective shell fire of the squadron and were forced to run on the 
beach some six or seven miles west of the harbor entrance, where they burned 
and blew up later. The torpedo-boat destroyers were destroyed early in the 
action, but the smoke was so dense in their direction that I cannot say to which 
vessel or vessels the credit belongs. This, doubtless, was better seen from your 
flagship. 

" 4. The Vizcaya and Colon, perceiving the disaster to their consorts, 
continued at full speed to the westward to escape, and were followed and 
engaged in a running fight with the Brooklyn, Texas, Iowa, and Oregon until 
10:50, when the Vizcaya took fire from our shells. She put her helm to port, 



518 COMMODORE SCHLEY'S REPORT. 

and, with a heavy list to port, stood in shore and ran aground at Aserradero, 
about twenty-one miles west of Santiago, on fire fore and aft, and where she 
blew up during the night. Observing that she had struck her colors and that 
several vessels were nearing her to capture and save the crew, signal was made 
to cease firing. The Oregon, having proved vastly faster than the other bat- 
tleships, she and the Brooklyn, together with the Texas and another vessel, 
which proved to be your flagship, continued westward, in pursuit of the Colon, 
which had run close in shore, evidently seeking some good spot to beach, if she 
should fail to elude her pursuers. 

"5. This pursuit continued with increasing speed in the Brooklyn. Oregon 
and other ships, and soon the Brooklyn and the Oregon were within long range 
of the Colon, when the Oregon opened fire with her thirteen-inch guns, landing 
a shell close to the Colon. A moment afterward the Brooklyn opened fire with 
her eight-inch guns, landing a shell just ahead of her. Several other shells 
were fired at the Colon, now in range of the Brooklyn's and Oregon's guns. 
Her commander seeing all chances of escape cut off and destruction awaiting 
his ship, fired a lee gun and struck her flag at 1:15 p. M., and ran ashore at a 
point some fifty miles west of Santiago harbor. Your flagship was coming up 
rapidly at the time, as was also the Texas and Yixen. A little later, after your 
arrival, the Cristobal Colon, which had struck to the Brooklyn and the Oregon, 
was turned over to you as one of the trophies of this great victory of the 
squadron under your command. 

" 6. During my official visit a little later Commander Eaton, of the Reso- 
lute, appeared and reported to you the presence of a Spanish battleship near 
Altares. Your orders to me were to take the Oregon and go eastward to meet 
her, and this was done by the Brooklyn, with the result that the vessel reported 
as an enemy was discovered to be the Austrian cruiser Kaiserin seeking the 
Commander-in-Chief. 

" 7. I would mention for your consideration that the Brooklyn occupied the 
most westward blockading position with the Yixen, and being more directly in 
the route taken by the Spanish squadron, was exposed for some minutes, pos- 
sibly ten, to the gun fire of three of the Spanish ships and the west battery at 
a range of 1,500 yards from the ships and about 3,000 yards from the batteries, 
but the vessels of the entire squadron, closing in rapidly, soon diverted this fire 
and did magnificent work at close range. I have never before witnessed such 
deadly and fatally accurate shooting as was done by the ships of your com- 
mand as they closed in on the Spanish squadron, and I deem it a high privilege 
to commend to you for such action as you may deem proper, the gallantry and 
dashing courage, the prompt decision and the skilful handling of their respec- 
tive vessels, of Captain Philip, Captain Evans, Captain Clark, and especially 
of my chief of staff, Captain Cook, who was directly under my personal obser- 
vation and whose coolness, promptness, and courage were of the highest order. 
The dense smoke of the combat shut out from my view the Indiana and the 



COMMODORE SCHLEY'S REPORT. 519 

Gloucester, but as these vessels were closer to your flagship, uo doubt their part 
in the conflict was under your immediate observation. 

" 8. Lieutenant Sharp, commanding the Vixen, acted with conspicuous 
courage ; although unable to engage the heavier ships of the enemy with his 
light guns, nevertheless was close into the battle line under heav}" fire, and 
many of the enemy's shot passed beyond his vessel. 

" 9. I beg to invite special attention to the conduct of my flag lieutenant, 
James H. Sears, and Ensign Edward McCauley, Jr., aide, who were constantly 
at my side during the engagement, and who exposed themselves fearlessly in 
discharging their duties; and also to the splendid behavior of my secretary, 
Lieutenant B. W. Wells, Jr., who commanded and directed the fighting of the 
fourth division with splendid effect. 

"10. I would commend the highly meritorious conduct and courage in the 
engagement of Lieutenant-Commander N. E. Mason, the executive officer, 
whose presence eveiywhere over the ship during its continuance did much to 
secure the good result of this ship's part in the victory. 

" 11. The navigator, Lieutenant A. C. Hodgson, and the division office^ 
Lieutenant T. D. Griffin, Lieutenant W. R. Rush, Lieutenant Edward Simp- 
son, Lieutenant J. G. Doyle, Ensign Charles Webster, and the junior divisional 
officers were most steady and conspicuous in every detail of duty, contributing 
to the accurate firing of this ship in her part of the great victory of your 
forces. 

" 12. The officers of the medical, pay, and engineer and marine corps re- 
sponded to every demand of the occasion and were fearless in exposing them- 
selves. The warrant officers, Boatswain William L. Hill, Carpenter G. H. 
Warford and Gunner F. T. Applegate, were everywhere exposed in watching 
for damage, reports of which were promptly conveyed to me. 

"13. I have never in my life served with a braver, better or worthier crew 
than that of the Brooklyn. During the combat, lasting from 9:35 until 1:15 
p. M., much of the time under fire, they never flagged for a moment and were 
apparently undisturbed by the storm of projectiles passing ahead, astern and 
over the ship. 

" 14. The result of the engagement was the destruction of the Spanish 
squadron and the capture of the Admiral and some thirteen to fifteen hundred 
prisoners with the loss of several hundred killed, estimated by Admiral Cer- 
vera at 600 men. 

" 15. The casualties on board this ship were : G. H. Ellis, chief yeoman, 
killed; J. Burns, fireman, first-class, severely wounded. The marks and scars 
show that the ship was struck about twenty-five times and she bears in all 
forty-one scars as the result of her participation in the great victory of your 
force on July 3, 1898. The speed-cone halliards were shot away and nearly all 
the signal halliards. The ensign at the main was so shattered that in hauling 
it down at the close of the action it fell in pieces. 



520 CAPTAIN EVANS' REPORT. 

" 16. I congratulate you most sincerely upon this great victory to the 
squadron under your command, and I am glad that I had an opportunity to 
contribute in the least to a victory that seems big enough for all of us. 

"17. I have the houor to transmit herewith the report of the commanding 
officer and a drawing in profile of the ship showing the location of hits and 
scars ; also a memorandum of the ammunition expended and the amount to 
fill her allowance. 

" 18. Since reaching this place and holding conversation with several of the 
Captains, viz, Captain Eulate of the Vizcaya and the second in command of the 
Colon, Commander Contreras, I have learned that the Spanish Admiral's scheme 
was to concentrate all fire for a while on the Brooklyn, and for the Vizcaya to 
ram her, in hopes that if they could destroy her the chance of escape would be 
increased, as it was supposed she was the swiftest ship of your squadron. This 
explains the heavy fire mentioned and the Vizcaya's action in the earlier mo- 
ments of the engagement. The execution of this purpose was promptly de- 
feated by the fact that all the ships of the squadron advanced into close range 
and opened an irresistibly furious and terrific fire upon the enemy's squadron 
as it was coming out of the harbor. 

"19. I am glad to say that the injury supposed to be below the water line 
was due to a water valve being opened from sume unknown cause and flooding 
the compartment. The injury to the belt is found to be only slight and the 
leak small. 

"20. I beg to enclose a list of the officers and crew who participated in the 
combat of July 8, 1898. 

"21. I cannot close this report without mentioning in high terms of praise 
the splendid conduct and support of Captain C. E. Clark of the Oregon. Her 
speed was wonderful and her accurate fire splendidly destructive. 

' ' Very respectfully, 

" W. S. Schley, 
"Commodore U. S. Navy, commanding second squadron, North Atlantic fleet. 

" The Commander-in-Chief U. S. Naval Force, North Atlantic Station." 



Captain Evans' Report. 

" United States Steamship Iowa, First Rate, 
" Off Santiago de Cuba, July 4, 1898. 
" Sir : I have the honor to make the following report of the engagement 
f/ith the Spanish squadron off Santiago de Cuba on the 3d of July : 

" 1. On the morning of the 3d, while the crew was at quarters for Sunday 
inspection, the leading vessel of the Spanish squadron was sighted at 9:31 
o'clock coming out of the harbor of Santiago de Cuba. Signal 'Enemy's 
ships coming out J was immediately hoisted, and a gun fired to attract attention. 



CAPTAIN EVANS' REPORT. 521 

The call to general quarters was sounded immediately, the battery made ready 
for firing, and the engines rung full speed ahead. 

" 2. The position of this vessel at the time of sighting the squadron was the 
usual blockading station off the entrance of the harbor ; Morro Castle bearing 
about north, and distant about three to four miles. The steam at this time in 
the boilers was sufficient for a speed of five knots. 

" 3. After sighting the leading vessel, the Infanta Maria Teresa (Admiral 
Cervera's flagship), it was observed that she was followed in succession by the 
remaining three vessels of the Spanish squadron, the Yizcaya, Cristobal Colon 
and Almirante Oquendo. The Spanish ships moved at a speed of about eight 
to ten knots, which was steadily increased as they cleared the harbor entrance 
and stood to the westward. They maintained a distance of about 800 yards be- 
tween vessels. The squadron moved with precision and stations were well 
kept. 

" 4. Immediately upon sighting the leading vessel fires were spread, and the 
Iowa headed toward the leading Spanish ship. About 9:40 the first shot was 
fired from this ship, at a distance of about 6,000 yards. 

" The course of this vessel was so laid that the range speedily diminished. 
A number of shots were fired at ranges varying between 6,000 and 4,000 yards. 
The range was rapidly reduced to 2,500 yards, and subsequently to 2,000 and 
to 1,200 yards. 

li 5. When it was certain that the Maria Teresa would pass ahead of us, the 
helm was put to starboard and the starboard broadside delivered at a range of 
2,500 yards. The helm was then put to port and the ship headed across the 
bow of the second ship, and as she drew ahead the helm was again put to star- 
board, and she received in turn the full weight of our starboard broadside at a 
range of about 1,800 yards. The Iowa was again headed off with port helm for 
the third ship, and as she approached the helm was put to starboard until our 
course was approximately that of the Spanish ship. In this position, at a 
range of 1,400 yards, the fire of the entire batteiy, including rapid-fire guns, 
was poured into the enemy's ship. 

" 6. About ten o'clock the enemy's torpedo-boat destroyers Furor and Pluton 
were observed to have left the harbor and to be following the Spanish squadron. 
At the time that they were observed, and, in fact, most of the time that they 
were under fire, they were at a distance varying from 4,500 to 4,000 yards. As 
soon as they were discovered the secondary battery of this ship was turned 
upon them, while the main battery continued to engage the Yizcaya, Oquendo 
and Maria Teresa. 

" The fire of the main battery of this ship when the range was below 2,500 
yards was most effective and destructive, and after a continuance of this fire 
for perhaps twenty minutes it was noticed that the Maria Teresa and Oquendo 
were in flames and were being headed for the beach. Their colors were struck 
about 10:20, and they were beached about eight miles west of Santiago. 



522 CAPTAIN EVANS' REPORT. 

" T. About the same time (about 10:25) the fire of this vessel, together with 
that of the Gloucester and another smaller vessel, proved so destructive that 
one of the torpedo-boat destroyers (Pluton) was sunk, and the Furor was so 
much damaged that she was run upon the rocks. 

" 8. After having passed, at 10:35, the Oquendo and Maria Teresa on fire 
and ashore, this vessel continued to chase and fire upon the Vizcaya until 
10:36, when the signal to cease firing was sounded on board, it having been dis- 
covered that the Vizcaya had struck her colors. 

" 9. At eleven the Iowa arrived in the vicinity of the Vizcaya, which had 
been run ashore, and as it was evident that she could not catch the Cristobal 
Colon, and that the Oregon, Brookfvn and New York would, two steam cutters 
and three cutters were immediately hoisted out and sent to the Vizcaya to 
rescue her crew. Our boats succeeded in bringing off a large number of offi- 
cers and men of that ship's company and placing many of them on board the 
torpedo boat Ericsson and the auxiliary despatch vessel Hist. 

M 10. About 11:30 the New York passed in chase of the Cristobal Colon, 
which was endeavoring to escape from the Oregon, Brooklyn, and Texas. 

"11. We received on board this vessel from the Vizcaya Captain Eulate, 
the commanding officer, and twenty-three officers, together with about 248 
petty officers and men, of whom thirty-two were wounded. There were also 
received on board five dead bodies, which were immediately buried with the 
honors due to their grade. 

" 12. The battery behaved well in all respects, the dashpot of the forward 
twelve-inch gun, damaged in the engagement of the 2d, having been replaced 
the same day by one of the old dashpots, which gave no trouble during this 
engagement. 

" 13. The following is an approximate statement of the ammunition ex- 
pended during the engagement. A more exact statement cannot be given at 
this time : 

31 twelve-inch semi-A. P. shell, with full charges. 

35 eight-inch common shell, with full charges. 

251 four-inch cartridges, common shell. 

1,056 six-pounder cartridges, common shell. 

100 one-pounder cartridges, common shell. 

" 14. This ship was struck in the hull, on the starboard side, during the 
early part of the engagement by two projectiles of about six-inch calibre, one 
striking the hull two to three feet above the actual water line and almost 
directly on the line of the berth deck, piercing the ship's side between frames 
nine and ten, and the other piercing the side and the coffer dam between frames 
eighteen and nineteen. 

"The first projectile did not pass beyond the inner bulkhead of the coffer- 
dam A 41-43. The hole made by it was large and ragged, being about six- 
teen inches in a longitudinal direction and about seven inches in a m "tical 



CAPTAIN EVANS' REPORT. 523 

direction. It struck with a slight inclination aft, and perforated the coffer- 
dam partition bulkhead (A 41-43, 45-47). It did not explode, and remained in 
the cofferdam. 

" The second projectile pierced the side of the ship and the cofferdam A 105, 
the upper edge of the hole being immediately below the top of the cofferdam, on 
the berth deck, in compartment A 104. The projectile broke off the hatch 
plate and coaming of the water-tank compartment, exploded and perforated the 
walls of the chain locker. The explosion created a small fire, which was 
promptly extinguished. The hole in the side made by this projectile was about 
five feet above the water line, and about two to three feet above the berth deck. 
One fragment of this shell struck a link of the sheet-chain, wound around the 
six-pounder ammunition hoist, cutting the link in two. Another perforated 
the cofferdam on the portside and slightly dished the outside plating. 

" These two wounds, fortunately, were not of serious importance. Two or 
three other projectiles of small calibre struck about the upper bridge and smoke- 
stacks, inflicting trifling damage, and four other small projectiles struck the 
hammock nettings and the side aft. 

" 15. There are no casualties among the ship's company to report. No 
officer nor man was injured during the engagement. 

" 16. After having received on board the rescued crew of the Vizcaya, this 
vessel proceeded to the eastward and resumed the blockading station in obedi-' 
ence to the signal made by the Commander-in-Chief about 11:30. 

" IT. Upon arriving on the blockading station the Gloucester transferred to 
this vessel Rear-Admiral Cervera, his Flag Lieutenant, and the commanding 
officers of the torpedo-boat destroyers Furor and Pluton, and also one man of 
the Oquendo's crew rescued by the Gloucester. 

" 18. Naval Cadets Frank Taylor Evans and John E. Lewis and five men 
belonging to the Massachusetts were on board the Iowa when the enemy's 
ships came out. They were stationed at different points and rendered efficient 
service. 

" 19. The officers and men of this ship behaved admirably. No set of men 
could have done more gallant service. I take pleasure in stating to you, sir, 
that the coolness and judgment of the executive officer, Lieutenant-Commander 
Raymond P. Rodgers, deserves, and will, I hope, receive a proper reward at 
the hands of the government. The test of the executive officer's work is the 
conduct of ship and crew in battle ; in this case it was simply superb. 

" The coolness of the navigator, Lieutenant W. H. Schuetze, and of Lieuten- 
ant F. K. Hill, in charge of the rapid-fire guns on the upper deck, are worthy 
of the greatest commendation. Other officers of the ship did not come under 
my personal observation, but the result of the action shows how well they did 
their duty. 

" I cannot express my admiration for my magnificent crew. So long as the 



524 CAPTAIN COOK'S REPORT. 

enemy showed his flag they fought like American seamen ; but when the flag 
came down they were as gentle and tender as American women. 

" 20. In conclusion, sir, allow me to congratulate you on the complete vic- 
tory achieved by j^our fleet. Very respectfully, 

" R. D. Evans, 
" Captain United States Navy, commanding. 
" To the Commander-in-Chief United States Naval Force, North Atlantic 
Station." 

Report of the Brooklyn's Commander. 

" United States Flagship Brooklyn, First Rate, 
" At Anchor, Guantanamo Bay, July 7, 1898. 

"Sir: 1. At nine a. m., July 3,1 gave orders and arrangements were 
made for general muster at 9:30 a. m. At 9:30 a. m. the enemy were tele- 
graphed by the Iowa as coming out. At the same time they were discovered 
by the Quartermaster on watch, N. Anderson, of this ship, and reported to the 
officer of the deck. The executive officer, Lieutenant-Commander Mason, 
who was on deck about to execute the order for general muster, immediately 
gave the order : ' Clear ship for action and general quarters.' Signal was made 
at the same time: ' Enemy coming out, action.' I went immediately forward, 
stood for the enemy, and gave orders to get steam on all boilers. We started 
with steam on three boilers at about twelve knots speed. 

" 2. The head of the Spanish squadron, in column, was just outside the 
entrance of the harbor of Santiago, heading about southwest. The Spanish 
squadron consisted of the Maria Teresa (flag), Vizcaya, Oquendo and Colon, 
and two torpedo destroyers. We opened fire on the leading ship in five 
minutes from the discovery. 

" 3. The port battery was first engaged as we stood with port helm to head 
off the leading ship, and giving them a raking fire at about 1,500 yards range. 
The enemy turned to the westward to close in to the land. We then wore 
around to starboard, bringing the starboard battery into action. The enemy 
hugged the shore to the westward. 

" 4. The Brooklyn, leading, was followed by the Texas, Iowa, Oregon, In- 
diana and Gloucester. The Vixen, which had been to westward to us on the 
blockade, ran to the southward and eastward of us and kept for some time off 
our port side distant about 1,000 yards, evidently intending to guard against 
torpedo attack upon this ship ; the shell passing over her. At this time the 
firing was very fast and the whistling of shell incessant, and our escape with so 
little injury was miraculous, and can only be attributed to bad marksmanship 
on the part of the enemy. The Maria Teresa, which had dropped astern while 
we were wearing, under the heavy fire of our fleet ran ashore. 

" 5. The Vizcaya, Oquendo and Colon, continuing on and gaining in dis- 



CAPTAIN COOK'S REPORT. 525 

tance, the Brooklyn was engaged with the three leading ships of the enemy, 
which were forging ahead, the Texas, Iowa, and Indiana keeping up a heavy 
fire, but steadily dropping astern. The Oregon was keeping up a steady fire 
and was coming up in the most glorious and gallant style, outstripping all 
others. It was an inspiring sight to see this battleship, with a large white 
wave before her, and her smokestacks belching forth continued puffs from her 
forced draught. We were making fourteen knots at the time, and the 
Oregon came up off our starboard quarter at about six hundred yards 
and maintained her position, though we soon after increased our speed 
to fifteen knots, and just before the Colon surrendered were making nearly 
sixteen. 

" 6. The Oquendo, soon after the falling out of the Teres?., dropped astern 
and on fire ran ashore. The Vizcaya and Colon continued on, under fire from 
the Brooklyn and Oregon. The other vessels of our fleet were well astern and 
out of range. The Texas was' evidently coming up fast. At about 10:53 A. M. 
the Vizcaya was seen to be on fire, and the Colon passed inside of her with in. 
creased speed, took the lead, and gradually forged ahead. The Vizcaya soon 
after ran on the beach, ablaze with fire. We signaled the Oregon to cease 
firing on the Vizcaya, as her flag was down. Firing immediately ceased and 
we both continued the chase of the Colon, now about 12,000 yards away. The 
ranges ran from 1,500 to 3,000 yards with the Vizcaya as she kept in and out 
from the coast. We steered straight for a distant point near Cape Cruz, while 
the Colon kept close to the land, running into all the bights. She could not 
have come out without crossing our bows, and we were steadily gaining on her. 
We were getting more steam all the time and now had four and one-half boilers 
on and the remaining one and one-half nearly ready. 

" 7. After running for about fifty miles west from the entrance, the Colon 
ran into a bight of land, beached, fired a gun to leeward and hauled down her 
flag. The Oregon and Brooklyn had just previously begun to fire upon the 
Colon and were landing shell close to her. I was sent on board by Commodore 
Schley to receive the surrender. The Captain spoke English and received me 
pleasantly, though naturally much depressed. He surrendered uncondition- 
ally. He was polite, shook hands and said his case was hopeless and that he 
saw that we were too much for him. I was on board about fifteen minutes. 
As we came from the Colon the flagship New York came in with the Texas. I 
reported on board the flagship to Rear-Admiral Sampson. I stated to him 
that I believed the Colon could be gotten off the beach. 

"8. During the entire action I was in constant communication with you, 
so that I was enabled to promptly execute your orders and instructions. The 
officers and crew behaved with great and unexceptionable coolness and bravery, 
so that it is difficult to discriminate. They were encouraged in their best 
efforts by your enthusiasm and your cheery words : ' Fire steady, boys, and 
give it to them.' 



526 CAPTAIN COOK'S REPORT. 

" 9. The executive officer, N. E. Mason, with his usual zeal, was continu- 
ally at the battery directing the firing and keeping me well informed of the 
exact condition of the ship, and in encouraging both officers and men by his 
example of coolness and courage. 

" 10. Lieutenant Hodgson was on the bridge coolly and deliberate^ taking 
bearings and measuring and giving ranges. He was assisted in getting ranges 
and noting time by Chief Yeoman George Ellis, with a stadimeter, until Ellis 
was killed by a passing shell. 

" 11. The officers of the divisions, Lieutenants T. I). Griffin, W. R. Rush, E. 
Simpson, J. G. Doyle, B. W. Wells and Ensign Webster, all performed their 
full duties deliberately and efficiently. The naval cadets in divisions were cool 
and efficient, Naval Cadets Halligan, Marble, Abele and Cronan having espe- 
cially been noticed for good service. Lieutenant B. W. Wells, your secretary, 
volunteered for command of a division, and was given the fourth division, thus 
enabling me to station a commissioned officer in a turret. 

" 12. Too much praise cannot be given the engineer's department for the 
hard work done by all in the steadily raising the steam until the speed rose from 
twelve to sixteen knots. 

" 13. The marines did splendid service at the guns and at their stations. 
The orderlies carried messages quickly and effectively. Captain Murphy and 
Lieutenant Borden were constant in their visits to the different stations, to be 
assured of efficiency. 

" 14. Medical Inspector Paul Fitzsimons and P. A. Surgeon De Valin were 
in constant attendance at the divisions and on deck to be ready for any emer- 
gency. Flag Lieutenant James H. Sears was particularly active, standing in 
the open directing signals, reporting fall of shot and position of the enemy. 
He was cool and firm in his duty. 

" 15. Ensign McCauley attended personally to signals while constantly 
under fire, at one time mounting the forward turret and making the wigwag 
himself. His coolness was conspicuous. 

" 16. The boatswain, Mr. Hill, was continually about the forecastle, ready 
for any duty, and materially assisted in watching the fall of shots and thus 
checked the ranges. 

" IT. The gunner, F. T. Applegate, rendered very valuable and conspicuous 
service at the battery, making repairs wherever practicable during the action. 

M 18. The carpenter, G. H. Warford, was on the alert, watching for effects 
of shell and in examining compartments, pipes, and valves. 

" 19. The signalmen under Chief Quartermaster O'Connell all stood in the 
open and performed their duties courageously. 

" 20. I would call to your special attention the valuable and conspicuous 
services rendered during the action b}' B. Gaynor (G. M., first-class), as noted 
in the reports of the executive officer, the divisional officers, and the gunner. 
Gaynor is a natural mechanic, and a very intelligent man, and he went from 



CAPTAIN PHILIP'S REPORT. 527 

gun to gun repairing breaks, and was constant in his work, keeping tbeni in 
condition for use. 

• "21. Chief Gunner's Mate D. F. Diggins was in all parts of the ship at- 
tending faithfully and coolly to the electric apparatus. 

" 22. N. Anderson (Q. M., first-class) is a particularly bright seaman. He 
was at the wheel and kept the ship steadily on her course. He has been par- 
ticularly known in this ship as a valuable man. He would prove very efficient 
as a mate, and I recommend him for such appointment. 

" 23. N. Morrissey (Lds.) twice got out on the muzzle of a forward six- 
pounder and backed out a jammed shot. Private Macneal, U. S. M. C, 
also went out on the muzzle of forecastle six-pounder and cleared a jammed 
shot. 

" 24. We had but two personal casualties, George H. Ellis (chief yeoman), 
killed, and J. Burns (F., first-class), wounded. The ship was struck twenty 
times by whole shot, and many times b}' pieces of huiating shell and from 
small shot of machine guns. No serious injury was done to the ship, and all 
repairs can be temporarily done by the ship's force, excepting to the five-inch 
elevating gear. The smokestacks were hit in several places, the signal hal- 
liards, rigging, and flags were cut in many places. The flag at the main 
was destroyed, being much cut by shot and flying pieces of shell. The eight- 
inch guns worked satisfactorily ; some trouble and delay was caused bj r jam- 
ming of locks. The turrets worked well. The five-inch batter}' gave great 
trouble with the elevating gear. At the end several were rendered useless for 
battle. Two are bulged at the muzzle. This ship should have new elevating- 
gear for five inch as soon as practicable. We fired 100 rounds of eight-inch, 
47V of five-inch, 1,200 of six-pounder, and 200 of one-pounder ammunition. 

" Very respectfully, 

" F. A. Cook, 
" Captain U. S. Navy, commanding. 
" To the Commander-in-Chief, Second Squadron, U. S. Naval Force, North 

Atlantic Station." 



Report of Captain Philip of the Texas. 

" United States Steamship Texas, 

" Off Santiago, July 4, 1898. 
"Sir: In accordance with the requirements of article 437, Navy Regula- 
tions, I respectfully submit the following statement in regard to the part the 
Texas took in the engagement with the enemy yesterday : 

" At daylight on the morning of the 3d the Texas stood out from entrance 
to harbor, taking day blockading position about three miles from the Morro 
(the Morro bearing N. N. E.). 



528 CAPTAIN PHILIP'S REPORT. 

" At 9:35, the Morro bearing north by east half east, distant 5,100 yards, the 
enemy's ships were sighted standing out of the hai'bor. Immediately general 
signal 250 was made. This signal was followed by the Iowa's almost at the 
same time. 

" The ship, as per order, was heading in toward the entrance ; went ahead 
full speed, putting helm hard a starboard and ordering forced draft on all boilers, 
the officer of the deck, Lieutenant M. L. Bristol, having given the general 
alarm and beat to quarters for action at the same time. 

" As the leader, bearing the Admiral's flag, appeared in the entrance she 
opened fire, whic'a was, at 9:40, returned by the Texas at range of 4,200 
yards, while closing in. The ship leading was of the Vizcaya class and the 
flagship. 

" Four ships came out, evidently the Vizcaya, the Oquendo, Maria Teresa, 
and Colon, followed by two torpedo-boat destroyers. Upon seeing these two 
we immediately opened fire upon them with our secondary battery, the main 
battery at the time being engaged with the second and third ships in line. 
Owing to our secondary battery, together with the Iowa and Gloucester, these 
two destroyers were forced to beach and sink. 

" While warmly engaged with the third in line, which was abreast and engag- 
-ng the Texas, our fire was blanketed for a short time by the Oregon forging 
ahead and engaging the second ship. This third ship, after a spirited fire, 
sheered inshore and at 10:35 ran up a white flag. We then ceased fire on the 
third and opened fiie with our forward guns at long range (6,600 yards) on the 
second ship which was then engaged with the Oregon, until 11:05, when she 
(enemy's second ship) sheered into the beach on fire. At 11:10 she struck her 
colors. We ceased fire and gave chase with Brooklyn and Oregon for the lead- 
ing ship until 1:20, when the Colon sheered into beach and hauled down her 
colors, leaving them on deck at foot of her flagstaff. We shut off forced draft 
and proceeded at moderate speed to close up. 

" I would state that during this chase the Texas was holding her own with 
the Colon, she leading us about four miles at the start. 

" The reports of the executive officer and the surgeon are transmitted. 

" I have the pleasure of stating that the entire battery of the Texas is in a 
most excellent condition and ready for any service required by the Commander- 
in-Chief, especially calling attention to the efficiency of the two turret guns, due 
to the alterations recently made by Lieutenant F. J. Haeseler, of this ship. 

" The bearing and performance of duty of all officers met with my entire ap- 
proval. Very respectful^ submitted, 

"J. W. Philip, 
" Captain U. S. Navy, Commanding. 
" To Commander-in-Chief, North Atlantic Station." 



Captain Clark's Report. 529 

" United States Steamship Oregon, First Rate, 
" Off Santiago de Cuba, July 4, 1898. 

■'Sir: 1. I have the honor to report that at 9:30 a. m. yesterday the 
Spanish fleet was discovered standing out of the harbor of Santiago de Cuba. 
They turned to the westward and opened fire, to which our ships replied vigor- 
ously. For a short time there was an almost continuous flight of projectiles 
over this ship, but when our line was fairly engaged, and the Iowa had made a 
swift advance as if to ram or close, the enemy's fire became defective in train 
as well as range. The ship was only struck three times, and at least two of 
them were by fragments of shells. We had no casualties. 

" 2. As soon as it was evident that the enemy's ships were trying to break 
through and escape to the westward we went ahead at full speed with the de- 
termination of carrying out to the utmost your order : If the enemy tries to 
escape, the ships must close and engage as soon as possible and endeavor to sink 
his vessels or force them to run ashore. We soon passed all of our ships except 
the Brooklyn, bearing the broad pennant of Commodore Schley. At first we 
only used our main battery, but when it was discovered that the enemy's tor- 
pedo boats were following their ships we used our rapid-fire guns as well as the 
six-inch upon them with telling effect. 

" As we ranged up near the sternmost of their ships she headed for the beach, 
evidently on fire. We raked her as we passed, pushing on for the next ahead, 
using our starboard guns as they were brought to bear, and before we had her 
fairly abeam she, too, was making for the beach. The two remaining vessels 
were now some distance ahead, but our speed had increased to sixteen knots, 
and our fire, added to that of the Brooklyn, soon sent another, the Vizcaya, to 
the shore in flames. Only the Cristobal Colon was left, and for a time it 
seemed as if she might escape, but when we opened with our forward turret 
guns and the Brooklyn followed she began to edge in toward the coast and her 
capture or destruction was assured. As she struck the beach her flag came 
down and the Brooklyn signaled, ' Cease firing,' following with, ' Congratula- 
tions for the grand victory ! Thanks for your splendid assistance.' 

" 3. The Brooklyn sent a boat to her, and when the Admiral came ap with 
the New York, Texas, and Vixen she was taken possession of. A prize crew 
was put on board from this ship under Lieutenant-Commander Cogswell, the 
executive officer, but before eleven p. m. the ship, which had been filling in 
spite of all efforts to stop leaks, was abandoned, and just as the crew left she 
went over on her side. 

"4. I cannot speak in too high terms of the bearing and conduct of all on 
board this ship. When they found the Oregon had pushed to the front and was 
hurrying to a succession of conflicts with the enemy's vessels if they could be 
overtaken and would engage, their enthusiasm was intense. 

" 5. As these vessels were so much more heavily armored than the Brooklyn, 
they might have concentrated upon and overpowered her, and consequently I 



530 CAPTAIN TAYLOR'S REPORT. 

am persuaded that, but for the way the officers and men of the Oregon steamed 
and steered the ship and fought and supplied her batteries, the Colon, and per- 
haps the Vizcaya, would have escaped. Therefore I feel that they rendered 
meritorious service to the countiy, and while I cannot mention the name of 
each officer and man individually, I am going to append a list of the officers, 
with their stations that they occupied, hoping that they may be of service to 
them should the claims of others for advancement above them ever be 
considered. Very respectfully, 

" C. E. Clark, 
" Captain U. S. Navy, Commanding. 
; ' To the Commander-in-Chief, U. S. Naval Force, North Atlantic Station." 



Captain Taylor's Report. 

" United States Steamship Indiana, First Rate, 
" Off Santiago de Cuba, July 4, 1898. 

" Sir : I have the honor to submit the following report of the operations of 
the Indiana in the action of July 3 with the Spanish squadron off Santiago de 
Cuba : 

" 1. At 9:31 a. m., while the crew were at quarters, preliminary to general 
muster, noted two guns fired from the Iowa and general signal ' Enemy's ships 
escaping ' flying. At once cleared ship for action and the crew were at the 
guns in a remarkably short time, all officers and men showing an alacrity that 
indicated clearly their pleasure at the opportunity offered them. 

" 2. The Spanish squadron was seen emerging from the harbor, and in a few 
moments a general action ensued. The leading ship, which proved to be the 
Infanta Maria Teresa, flying the flag of Vice Admiral Cervera, was followed 
by the other vessels of the squadron as follows : Vizcaya, Cristobal Colon, 
Oquendo, and the torpedo-boat destroyers, Furor and Pluton. The enemy's 
vessels headed to the westward, and our ships headed in the same direction, 
keeping as nearly abreast of them as possible. 

" 3. This ship fired on all of them as they came out one by one, and con- 
tinued the action later by firing principally on the Maria Teresa, Oquendo, 
Furor and Pluton. Several of our shells were seen to take effect on these ves- 
sels. Our secondary battery guns were directed principally on the destroyers 
as also were the six-inch guns. The destroyers were sunk through the agency 
of our guns and those of the Gloucester, which vessel had come up and engaged 
them close abreast. 

" 4. The initial fire of the last two ships was directed at this vessel, and al- 
though falling very close, only struck the ship twice without any injury to 
ship or crew. 

" 5. Our ranges were obtained by stadimeter angles on Morro as the ships 



CAPTAIN TAYLOR'S REPORT. 631 

emerged, and then by angles on the tops of the rear ships. The ranges were 
from 4,500 to 3,000 yards, observed from the top. From the bridge I could se# 
that our shooting was excellent and showed its effects. One of our thirteen 
inch shells was seen to enter the Maria Teresa under the quarter deck and ex> 
plode, and that ship was observed on fire very shortly afterward. 

" 6. About 10:15 a. m. observed the Maria Teresa and Oquendo on fire an<( 
heading for the beach, the fire from their guns having ceased. We then de- 
voted our special attention to prevent the escape of the destroyers, which ap- 
peared more than a match for the Gloucester, she being the only small vessel 
near to engage them. They were soon seen to blow up, apparently struck by 
our six-inch and six-pounders. We now fired our large guns at the Vizcaya, 
which was at long range ; she made for the shore soon after, on fire and battery 
silenced. These ships hauled down their colors as they made for the beach. 
The Spanish flagship hoisted the white flag as she grounded. 

" 7. We now ceased firing. The Colon was observed well over the western 
horizon, closely pursued by the Brooklyn, Oregon, and Texas off shore of her. 
The flagship New York, steaming full speed to the westward, as soon as the 
Vizcaya surrendered, signaled us ' Go back and guard entrance of harbor.' 
Several explosions were observed on board the burning ships. At noon turned 
and stood to the eastward for our station in obedience to the above signal. Ob- 
served the Harvard and several transports standing to the westward. 

" 8. About 12:30 the Resolute came within hail and informed us by mega- 
phone that a Spanish battleship was sighted to the eastward, standing toward 
us. Later the Harvard passed, confirming the information, and adding that 
the ship was painted white. We made out the vessel ahead and stood for her 
with our guns bearing. She proved to be the Austrian armored cruiser Kais- 
erin Maria Teresa. She sent an officer on board and requested permission to 
enter the harbor. I referred him to the Commander-in-Chief. She then stood 
on to the westward and we resumed our station. 

" 9. During this action we used no armor-piercing shell, except the smoke- 
less-powder six-pounders, and the good effect of the common shell is shown by 
the fires on the enemy's ships and the short time taken to disable them with- 
out piercing their armor, and with almost no injury to our ships. 

" 10. The guns and mounts worked well, only two failures of electric prim- 
ers noted. 

" 11. During the afternoon sent boats with surgeon on shore to the burning 
vessels to assist in caring for the wounded. The boats returned bringing one 
wounded officer and seventeen men as prisoners. 

" 12. Received also during the afternoon and night prisoners from the 
Gloucester and Hist, in all seven officers and 217 men, who were to-day trans- 
ferred to the St. Louis. 

" 13. The conduct of the officers and crew was in every way commendable ; 
coolness and good discipline prevailed, coupled with a marked enthusiasm. 
29 



532 CAPTAIN CHADWICK'S REPORT. 

This desirable condition of afl'airs is largely due to the efforts of the officers, 
and I desire to commend to the Commander-in-Chief the executive officer, Lieu- 
tenant Commander John A. Rodgers and all the officers of the ship for the part 
taken by the Indiana in bringing about this great victory, and the complete 
destruction of the enemy's squadron. Very respectfully, 

" H. C. Taylor, 
" Captain Commanding. 
" To the Commander-in-Chief, U. S. Naval Forces on North Atlantic Station." 

Captain Chad wick's Report. 

" United States Flagship New York, 
" Playa del Este, July 4, 1898. 

" Sir : I have the honor to make the following report of the part taken by 
this ship in the action of yesterday during and following the sortie of Admiral 
Cervera's squadron. 

" 1. The ship had started at 8:50 for the army landing at Siboney, the Com- 
mander-in-Chief having an appointment with the General commanding the 
army. A few minutes after the crew had been called to quarters for Sunday 
inspection firing was heard and a ship was seen leaving the harbor entrance. 
The helm was at once put over, the crew called to general quarters, signal 
' Close in toward the harbor entrance and attack vessels ' made, orders given to 
spread all fires, and the ship headed back for the enemy, whose ships were seen 
successfully coming out at a high speed. The Flagship Infanta Maria Teresa 
was first, then another armored cruiser of the same class (which turned out to 
be the Vizcaya), followed by the Cristobal Colon, an armored cruiser 
(Oquendo) and the torpedo-boat destroj'ers Furor and Pluton. 

" 2. The nearer ships had immediately engaged and by the time we were 
off' the entrance, one, the flagship, was already afire and was soon ashore ; the 
Indiana and Gloucester were actively engaged with the torpedo boats ; this 
ship fired some four-inch shells at the one nearer the port toward which she 
was already headed and seemed attempting to return, but she was already 
practically out of the fight. The boiler of the more advanced one had blown 
up, showing a vast column of condensed steam. During the time the batteries, 
whose line of fire we had crossed close to, repeatedly fired upon us, but with- 
out effect. No return was made to this fire. A shell from the west battery 
fell within 200 yards of the ship when we were over four miles to the west- 
ward and we had thought ourselves entirely out of range. This ship stood on, 
leaving the Gloucester, which had shown herself so capable, to look after the 
survivors in the torpedo boats. By this time a second cruiser was ashore and 
burning (the Almirante Oquendo), while the third, the Vizcaya, and the 
Cristobal Colon were still steaming rapidly westward. The Indiana was now 
signaled (11:26 A, M.) to return to her blockading position, to look after any- 



CAPTAIN CHADWICK'S REPORT. 533 

thing which might be there. Very shortly the Vizcaya turned shoreward, smoke 
began to issue from her after port, and by the time that she was ashore on the 
reef at Aserradero (fifteen miles west of Santiago) she was ablaze. The Iowa 
had signaled a little before that she had surrendered, and stopped oil - this 
place, where she gave much assistance in the rescue of the Vizcaya's people. 

" 3. This ship stood on in chase of the Cristobal Colon, with ahead of us 
the Brooklyn, Oregon, Texas, and Vixen, the Oregon being much nearer in 
shore of the two headmost ships, but not in gunshot. We were rapidly in- 
creasing our speed. 

" 4. It was evident, however, that the Colon would give us a lengthy chase, 
and at noon the crew left quarters and went to dinner. 

"5. About 12:50 the Oregon opened fire, and some of her shell were ob- 
served to strike beyond the Colon ; this made her capture a foregone conclusion, 
and shortly after one o'clock she turned in toward shore, and soon struck her 
colors. She had been beached at a small inlet known as Rio Tarquino. By 
the time we arrived, a boat was alongside her from the Brooklyn, and Captain 
Cook, the boarding officer came alongside this ship and reported. This ship 
then sent a boat to take possession, the commanding officer going in the boat. 
I was received by the Commodore of the squadron, the Captain, Captain de 
Navio Don Emilio Moreu, and Captain de Navio of the first-class Don Jose 
de Paredes y Chacon (which latter had been civil Governor of Santiago, and 
had only just been attached to the squadron). I arranged for the transfer of 
the crew and officers, a division to each ship present, and the engineer force to 
be left aboard. While aboard, however, the Resolute arrived, and it was ar- 
ranged to transfer the whole number to her. 

" 6. I had taken with me the fleet surgeon, an engineer, and the carpenter 
to examine and make secure everything necessary. The engineer reported to' 
me that she was making water aft. I had previously had soundings taken and 
found eight feet at the bow and seventy at the stern, so that but a small portion 
of the ship was ashore. I returned as quickly as possible to the flagship to re- 
port the situation. The Oregon was signaled to take charge, and the men 
were hastened on board, a number sent also from the ship. Our work of 
closing watertight doors, &c, was, however, of no avail ; a large number of 
sea valves had been treacherously opened, and the valves so broken as to make 
it impossible to close them ; the ship thus slowly settled. At 7:30 she came 
afloat, and came out into deeper water. The officer in charge, Lieutenant-Corn 
mander Cogswell, had let go an anchor, but it was clear that if she went down 
in water of the depth in which she was, she could never be recovered. This 
ship's stem was placed against her quarter, and later a line being taken from 
our own bow to hers, the Colon was forced inshore. It was by this time dark, 
but using a searchlight, we were enabled to force the ship on the beach, the 
chain being played out at the same time. She thus sank in a very moderate 
depth of water, and it is very probable she may be saved. 



534 LIEUTENANT-COMMANDER WATNWRIGHT'S REPORT. 

" 7. At eleven p. m. the flagship returned to Santiago, leaving the Texas and 
Oregon in charge of the prize. 

" 8. Though the ship was not able to come to action with any of the larger 
ships on account of her distance to the eastward, every nerve was strained to 
do so, and all was done that could be done. Our speed had rapidly increased, 
so that we were going sixteen knots at the end. We were immediately astern, 
while all others were considerably to seaward. We were thus in a position to 
prevent a possible doubling to the rear and escape to the southeast. 

" 9. The officers and crew, as they always have done, acted in the most en- 
thusiastic and commendable manner. They have worked into so complete a 
system that the ship is practically instantaneously ready for action, and while 
(all) are deserving of commendation and credit, I think it no derogation from 
the deserts of others to particularly name Lieutenant-Commander Potter, to 
whom, as executive officer, so much of the ship's efficiency is due, and Chief 
Engineer McConnell, who has kept the machinery in the admirable order which 
has enabled us at all times to develop the ship's full speed. 

" Very respectfully, 

" F. E. Chadwick, 
" Captain U. S. Navy, Commanding. 
" To the Commander-in-Chief U. S. Naval Force, North Atlantic Station." 



Lieutenant-Commander Wainwright's Report. 

" United States Steamship Gloucester, 
" Off Santiago de Cuba, July 6, 1898. 

" Sir : I have the honor to report that at the battle of Santiago on July 3 
the officers and crew of the Gloucester were uninjured and the vessel was not 
injured in hull or machinery, the battery only requiring some slight overhaul- 
ing. It is now in excellent condition. 

" I enclose herewith a copy of the report of the executive officer, made in 
compliance with paragraph 525, page 110, Naval Regulations, which report I 
believe to be correct in all particulars. I also enclose copies of the reports of 
the several officers which may prove valuable for future reference. 

" It was the plain duty of the Gloucester,to look after the destroyers, and 
she was held back, gaining steam, until they appeared at the entrance. The 
Indiana poured in a hot fire from all her secondary battery upon the destroy- 
ers ; but Captain Taylor's signal, ' Gunboats close in,' gave security that we 
would not be fired upon by our own ships. Until the leading destroyer was 
injured, our course was converging, necessarily ; but as soon as she slackened 
her speed we headed directly for both vessels, firing both port and starboard 
batteries as the occasion offered. 

" All the officers and nearly all the men deserve my highest praise during 



LIEUTENANT-COMMANDER WAINWRIGHT'S REPORT. 535 

the action. The escape of the Gloucester was due mainly to the accuracy and 
rapidity of the fire. Tbe efliciency of this fire, as well as that of the ship gen- 
erally, was largely due to the intelligence and unremitting efforts of the exec- 
utive officer, Lieutenant Harry P. Huse. The result is more to his credit when 
it is remembered that a large portion of the officers and men were untrained 
when the Gloucester was commissioned. Throughout the action he was on the 
bridge, and carried out my orders with great coolness. 

" That we were able to close in with tbe destroyers — and until we did so they 
were not seriously injured — was largely due to the skill and constant attention 
of Passed-Assistant Engineer George W. McElroy. The blowers were put out, 
and the speed increased to seventeen knots without causing a tube to leak or a 
brass to heat. Lieutenant Thomas C. Wood, Lieutenant George H. Norman, 
Jr., and Ensign John T. Edson not only controlled the fire of the guns in their 
division and prevented waste of ammunition, but they also did some excellent 
shooting themselves. Acting Assistant Surgeon J. F. Bransford took charge 
of one of the guns, and fired it himself occasionall}'. Acting Assistant Pay- 
master Brown had charge of the two Colt guns, firing one himself, and they 
did excellent work. Assistant Engineer A. M. Proctor carried my orders from 
the bridge, and occasionally fired a gun when I found it was not being served 
quite satisfactorily. All were cool and active at a time when they could have 
had but little hope of escaping uninjured. 

" Lieutenants Wood and Norman, Ensign Edson and Assistant Engineer 
Proctor were in charge of the boats engaged in saving life. They all risked 
their lives repeatedly in boarding and remaining near the two destroyers and 
the two armored cruisers when their guns were being discharged by the heat 
and their magazines and boilers were exploding. They also showed great skill 
in landing and taking off the prisoners through the surf. 

" Of the men mentioned in the several reports, I would call special attention 
to John Bond, chief boatswain's mate. He would bave been recommended to 
the department for promotion, prior to his gallant conduct during the action of 
July 3. I would also recommend to your attention Robert P. Jennings, chief 
machinist, mentioned in the report of Mr. McElro}'. I believe it would bave a 
good effect to recognize the skill of the men and the danger incurred by the 
engineers' force. I would also recommend that the acting appointments of 
those men mentioned by the officers in their reports be made permanent. 

" The wounded men and exhausted prisoners were well and skilfully tended 
by Assistant Surgeon Bransford, assisted by Ensign Edson, who is also a sur- 
geon. The Admiral, his officers, and men were treated with all consideration 
and care possible. They were fed and clothed as far as our limited means 
would permit. Very respectfully, 

" Richard Wainwright, 
" Lieutenant Commander, U. S. Navy, commanding. 
" To the Commander-in-Chief U. S. Naval Forces, North Atlantic Station." 



536 Lieutenant-Commander Sharp's Report. 

" United States Steamship Vixen, 
" Guantanamo, Cuba, July 7, 1898. 

" Sir : I have the honor to make the following report as to the part taken by 
the United States Steamship Yixen in the engagement with the Spanish fleet 
under the command of Admiral Cervera during the morning and afternoon of 
Sunday, July 3, 1898: 

" Between 9:35 and 9:45 a. m., the Yixen was at a point about four miles to 
the westward of Morro and at a distance of about one and one-half miles south 
of the shore line. At about 9:40 o'clock it was reported to me that an explo- 
sion had taken place in the entrance of Santiago harbor. I went on deck and 
almost immediately sighted the leading vessel of the Spanish fleet, standing out 
of the entrance. Some of the vessels of our fleet were closing in toward Morro 
and firing. 

" The Vixen was heading toward the Morro. The engines were ordered 
ahead at full speed and the helm put hard-a-port, the object being to cross 
ahead of the leading Spanish vessel and thus not obstruct the gun fire of our 
own fleet, the shells from which soon began to fall about the position we had 
just left. The leading Spanish vessel opened fire on this vessel with her star- 
board bow guns, the projectiles from which passed over us, all being aimed too 
high. I estimate the number of shots fired at us at this time to have been be- 
tween five and ten. 

" As the Vixen gathered headway her head came to about south by east, 
opening the Brooklyn up about two points on our port bow. Steadied her and 
steamed on about this course until we had reached a position about a mile to 
the southward and westward of the Brooklyn, which was now turning with 
port helm and firing her guns as they bore on the enemy's vessels. At 9:50 
o'clock hoisted signal No. 252. The course was then ordered changed to west- 
southwest, the intention being to steer a parallel course to that of the Spanish 
fleet. By some mistake the Quartermaster steadied the helm on southwest by 
south, which was soon discovered, but not until the Vixen had increased her 
distance offshore by perhaps another half mile. The course west-southwest 
was again ordered, and when steadied on it we were at an estimated distance of 
about five miles from the shore. From about 10:15 the courses and times of 
changing were as follows: At 10:15, changed course to west half south; at 
10:56, to northwest by north; at 11:00, west-northwest ; at 11:05, west by north ; 
at 11:10, northwest by west ; at 11:15, west by north ; at 11:30, west by south; 
at 1:50, west by north. All these courses were by the steering compass, and 
the speed was estimated from twelve to thirteen and one-half knots per hour. 
Times noted are by the deck clock, which was five minutes fast of watch time, 
used in the notes inclosed. Seeing that the Spanish vessels were out of range 
of our guns, while we were well within range of theirs, we reserved our fire. 

"About 11:06, having approached within range of the Vizcaya, we opened 
fire with our starboard battery at an elevation of 5,000 yards for the six-pounder 



CAPTAIN COTTON'S REPORT. 537 

guns and extreme elevation for the one-pounders. Continued the fire for six 
minutes, when, seeing that the ensign of the Vizcaya was not flying, at 11:12 
ordered cease firing. Expended twenty-seven six-pounders A. P. shells and 
eighteen one-pounder common shells. After passing Aserradero the course was 
held at from west by north to west by south, heading for the point on the 
western horizon. Average speed about twelve to thirteen and one-half knots ; 
average number of revolutions, 105 per minute; average steam pressure, 122£ 
pounds. 

" The Brooklyn and Oregon bore on the port and starboard bows respectively, 
and were gradually dropping the Vixen astern, as was the Cristobal Colon, 
which was running closer inshore. About 12:25 the Oregon opened fire on the 
Colon, as did also the Brooklyn, feeling their way up to the range, which was 
apparently obtained after the fourth or fifth shot. About 1:20 the Oregon and 
Brooklyn headed in shore, about four points. About 1:28 the Texas hoisted 
signal, ' Enemy has surrendered.' This signal was repeated to the New York 
by the Vixen. At 2:30 the Vixen stopped off Rio Tarquino, in the vicinity of 
the Oregon and Brooklyn. The Cristobal Colon was close in shore, bows on 
the beach, her colors down, lying on the deck at the foot of her staff. 

" I have the honor to inclose a copy of notes, taken during the chase by my 
orders, upon the suggestion of Lieutenant Harlow. These notes were written 
by Assistant Paymaster Doherty, the incidents and times were given by Lieu- 
tenant Harlow, whose watch was five minutes slow of deck-clock time. The 
times taken after 10:30 are accurate; those taken before that time were esti- 
mated, and may be in error a few minutes. 

" Inclosed is a sketch showing positions of vessels at various times. It is 
taken from a chart taken from the Cristobal Colon after the surrender, and is 
enlarged four times. All courses are true. 

" In conclusion, I wish to call your attention to the coolness and strict atten- 
tion to duty of both officers and men. Very respectfully, 

" Alex. Sharp, Jr., 
" Lieutenant, Commanding. 
" To the Commander-in-Chief U. S. Naval Forces, North Atlantic Station." 



Captain Cotton's Report. 

" United States Steamship Harvard, 
" At Sea, Off Altares, Cuba, July 4, 1898. 
" Sir: 1. On Sunday, the 3d inst., the Harvard, under my command, was 
at Altares, Cuba, discharging the military stores brought in the ship with the 
troops from Newport News, Va. Nearly all of the boats and the majority of 
the officers of the ship were employed in this work. Some of the boats were 
away from the ship discharging their loads and others were alongside loading. 



538 CAPTAIN COTTON'S REPORT. 

" 2. At 10:45 a. m. the United States Steamship Resolute passed Altares at a 
considerable distance, standing to the eastward, sounding her whistle vigorously 
and flying a signal which announced that the Spanish fleet had ' fled.' With the 
utmost despatch I recalled the boats and officers to the ship, hoisted the former, 
sent the steam launch on shore, got under way and stood to the westward to 
join you. The ship was cleared for action. 

" 3. I had previously observed that the fleet was firing, but supposed that 
it was a bombardment of the Mono and the neighboring batteries. The ships 
of the fleet had meantime disappeared to tbe westward, none being in sight 
when I came out from behind the land where I could command an uninter- 
rupted view of the coast west of Morro. 

" 4. I soon came up with the wrecks on shore of two of the smaller vessels 
and two of the cruisers of the Spanish fleet, and shortly afterward with the 
wreck of a third cruiser, all of the cruisers burning fiercely. 

" 5. I had meantime passed the Indiana and one of our torpedo boats stand- 
ing to tbe eastward in search of the missing Spanish cruiser and informed 
them that a large Spanish battleship or cruiser was in sight to the eastward off 
Baiquiri. They immediately stood on in chase, but the supposed enemy was 
ascertained later to be the Austrian cruiser Maria Teresa. 

" 6. At the most westerly of the three wrecks of the Spanish cruisers, the 
Vizcaya, I found the battleship Iowa and communicated with her. Learning 
from Captain Evans that you in the New York were in chase of the Cristobal 
Colon, and were probably many miles to the westward, I decided not to go 
further in that direction. 

" 7. Shortly afterward the Iowa and the Harvard stood to the eastward, and 
upon reaching the wrecks of the Oquendo and Maria Teresa, Captain Evans 
informed me that the officers and crews of both vessels were on shore in great 
distress and suffering for want of food, and asked me if I would rescue them — 
a request with which I, of course, instantly complied, and which would have 
been unnecessary had I previously known the circumstances concerning them. 

" 8. I took the Harvard in as near the wrecks as I deemed to be prudent, 
and at 4:40 p. m. lowered nine of our boats and sent them in to the shore to 
rescue the survivors. This work continued until 9:45 P. M.,when the last boat- 
load of Spanish prisoners came alongside. During the greater part of the 
time the steam cutter of the Indiana rendered valuable assistance in towing 
our boats to and from the shore. We had the good fortune to rescue thirtj 7 - 
five officers and 637 men, without accident to them or to our boats, notwith- 
standing the fact that the landing was through the surf and dangerous, as well 
from the incessant explosion of ammunition, both small and large, as from the 
surf. The boats were handled with skill and judgment b}^ the officers in com- 
mand of them, who were Lieutenants Beal^, Roberts, Davis, and Bradshaw, 
Ensigns Turner and Cuming, and Cadets Noa and Bruff, whose conduct and 
that of the boats' crews was commendable. 



LIEUTENANT USHER'S REPORT. 539 

" 9. Among the rescued were thirty-eight sick and wounded. At ten 
o'clock I steamed on to rejoin the ships off Santiago, reaching them at 10:55 
p. M. with the junior medical officer of the Indiana and a Lieutenant and a 
boat's crew of the United States Steamship, Gloucester. 

" 10. The Spanish officers and men received every attention that it was pos- 
sible to bestow upon them for their comfort and welfare. Some of them came 
on board wholly nude, and many with only a shirt or trousers. As soon as 
possible after their arrival on board they were provided with food and neces- 
sary clothing. About 300 working suits and many shoes and canvas bats were 
issued to them. The sick and wounded were attended by our own medical 
staff, assisted by two Spanish surgeons. 

"11. I transmit herewith a copy of the detailed report of Lieutenant 
Joseph Beale, United States Navy, of the Harvard, who was the senior officer 
in charge of the transportation of the Spaniards to this ship, and I beg leave 
to invite your attention to the terms in which he speaks of the highly com- 
mendable conduct of the officers and men associated with him in the successful 
accomplishment of an important and humane duty, and one not without ex- 
posure to danger. 

" 12. This forenoon sixteen of the most severely wounded men were trans- 
ferred to the United States hospital ship Solace. None of the Spanish officers 
on board this ship was so seriously wounded as to require transfer to that 
vessel. 

" 13. In conclusion I beg to be permitted the privilege, in my own behalf as 
well as that of the officers and men of the Harvard, to extend to you and to 
the people of the United States our most hearty and sincere congratulations 
upon the brilliant victory achieved by you yesterday, which adds another page 
to the imperishable glory and renown of the histoiy of our navy. 

" Very respectfully, 

" C. S. Cotton, 
" Captain U. S. Navy, Commanding. 
" To the Commander-in-Chief U S. Naval Force, North Atlantic Station." 



Lieutenant Usher's Report. 

" United States Torpedo Boat Ericsson, 
" Harbor of Guantanamo, Cuba, July 5, 1898. 
" Sir: In obedience to Art. 437, p. 98. United States Navy Register, 1896, 
I respectfully report that on the morning of July 3, 1898, the United States 
Torpedo Boat Ericsson was proceeding under half speed on the starboard 
quarter of the United States Flagship New York toward Siboney, when the 
enemy was sighted coining out of Santiago entrance, we being then five or six 
miles to the eastward of the Mono. The vessels of our fleet were firing on 



540 LIEUTENANT USHER'S REPORT. 

the enemy. The helm was put hard aport at once and full power put on as 
speedily as possible, and the course directed toward the enemy's ships, the crew 
at quarters and the vessel in all respects ready to deliver torpedo attack. By 
the time we had turned to westward two of the enemy's vessels were out in 
plain sight ; they were followed at short intervals by the other two cruisers, 
and then after a longer interval by the two torpedo-boat destroyers. The fire 
of the shore batteries supported the enemy's fleet, and the fire of both fleets 
was rapid and continuous. The flagship New York had hoisted signal 260 : 
' Close in toward harbor entrance and attack vessels.' The Ericsson proceeded 
as fast as possible, the steam pressure and speed gradually increasing. The 
shore batteries at entrance to Santiago were directing their fire on the Glouces- 
ter at this time, which was hotly engaged with the two torpedo-boat destroy- 
ers. At full speed we drew near the entrance, and as we passed and afterward 
the fire of the shore batteries was directed on us. Several shells struck near 
us, short or beyond, and two burst overhead and over. The Ericsson was not 
struck. The Brooklj'n, Texas, Oregon, Iowa and Indiana were closely en- 
gaged with the Colon, Vizcaya, Oquendo and Maria Teresa ; the firing was 
furious. As we drew near, the two torpedo-boat destroyers were seen to strike 
to the Gloucester, and the Maria Teresa and Oquendo to run ashore, strike 
their colors, and display white flags. They were both on fire and clouds of 
steam arising from their hatches and ports. The Indiana remained near them, 
the Iowa directed her fire on the Vizcaya, and the Oregon joined in the chase 
of the Colon. The course of the Ericsson was directed toward the Vizcaya, 
prepared to deliver torpedo attack, but before we could arrive within striking 
distance the Vizcaya was seen to strike to the Iowa, run ashore and burst into 
flames, her engines being left running and clouds of steam issuing from all her 
openings on deck and in her sides. The course of the Ericsson was then set 
for the Colon, which was running very fast to the westward, pursued by the 
Brooklyn, Texas, and Oregon. As the Ericsson was hauling away from the 
New York in the chase, signal was made, interrogatory 2,872 : ' Request per- 
mission to continue the chase.' The flagship hoisted negative, and by wigwag 
signal directed the Ericsson to pick up men in the water astern. Turned with 
port helm and found and picked up one man afloat on a piece of wreckage and 
then returned to the chase, the New York in the meantime chasing fast after 
the Colon. As we came up with the Iowa, lying about two miles seaward of 
Vizcaya, the Ericsson was hailed and directed to go inshore and rescue the crew 
of the Vizcaya from the burning vessel. Ran close alongside the Vizcaya and 
sent small boat to her, boats from Iowa pulling in also at same time. Explo- 
sions from the ammunition on board the Vizcaya began about this time, and 
her guns, which had been left loaded, were fired one after the other by the 
flames. The Vizcaya was on fire fore and aft, but the mass of the fire was aft, 
and the position of the Ericsson was perilous in the extreme and only the 
urgency of the occasion caused her to remain. Rescued eleven officers' and 



ADMIRAL CERVERA'S STATEMENT. 541 

about nine sailors and marines from the vessel, many of them sorely wounded. 
The Spanish were no sooner taken on board than they urged immediate with- 
drawal of the Ericsson, but this vessel remained until all alive had been taken 
from the Vizcaya by the Ericsson's small boat and the boats from the Iowa. One 
of the Vizcaya's large cutters was also used. The Ericsson's deck was then 
crowded with prisoners, most of them naked and many of them wounded, and 
she returned to the Iowa towing the Yizcaya's cutter, also filled with prisoners. 
These were all put on board the Iowa. 

" [The enemy afterward towed boats to and from the burning wrecks of the 
Maria Teresa and Oquendo until no more persons remained to be rescued from 
the vessels, the remaining prisoners being all ashore on the beach. There were 
no casualties on board this vessel.] 

" I respectfully commend the good conduct of Edward Ryan, G. M., second 

class, who manned the small boat and brought off the officers and men from the 

stern of the Yizcaya, a duty of great danger from the incessant explosions of 

ammunition on board her. Very respectfully, 

" N. R. Usher, 

" Lieutenant U. S. Navy, Commanding. 

" To the Commander-in-Chief U. S. Naval Force, North Atlantic Station." 

This naval history is compiled from a semi-official statement issued by 
Admiral Cervera on leaving this country. This document declares, that 

" The full truth concerning what led to the destruction of the magnificent 
Cape Yerde fleet, has never yet been told, and the time has come when certain 
facts which have been heretofore withheld should be made public. It is true 
that Admiral Cervera and his officers may be court-martialed upon reaching 
Spain, and upon conviction it is also true that they could be shot if the authori- 
ties, those composing the court-martial or the Government, saw fit to impose 
such a penalty. However, such a catastrophe is not looked for ; it will not 
occur; and when all the facts are plainly set forth and the blame placed where 
it belongs, it will be clearly shown that Admiral Cervera acted like the wise 
and sagacious Admiral that he is and both he and his officers and crew will be 
completely exonerated. 

" Notwithstanding this, their situation at present or upon their approaching 
Spain is critical, and it may be safely said that the high standing of Admiral 
Cervera's family— all being of royal blood— will not save him from court-mar- 
tial. Public opinion has been inflamed against him in Spain through gross 
misrepresentation, through falsehood and conspiracy of those who seek to shift 
the blame for the loss of the Spanish ships from their own shoulders to the 
shoulders of Admiral Cervera. Their erring deeds, unfaithfulness and treach- 
ery were entirely responsible for the disaster they would place upon those who 
are innocent, and who, if allowed to exercise their own wisdom and discretion, 
would have saved for Spain the pride of her navy. 



542 ADMIRAL CERVERA'S STATEMENT. 

" It is untrue that Admiral Cervera, after leaving the Cape Verde Islands 
and reaching western waters, was seeking to avoid the American fleet and flying 
here and there to avoid a fight. Naturally, his plans were different from those 
laid out for him to follow by the American Board of Strategy, for he was 
endeavoring to separate the American fleets and engage them separately ; he 
wanted to meet and fight them singly, but his misfortune would not permit him 
to do that. When he was nearly without coal and being in need of some slight 
repairs to his ships he naturally put into Santiago, expecting there to find sup- 
plies, to make what few repairs were needed, get provisions and proceed further, 
but there he was greatly disappointed. 

" Through the interference of General Blanco he was prevented from carry- 
ing out his plans, and the whole world knows the result. General Blanco im- 
mediately communicated to Spain and asked the Minister of Marine to place 
Admiral Cervera and his fleet under his (Blanco's) orders, making various rep- 
resentations and explaining the necessity of such action from his standpoint, 
and his request was finally granted. 

" It was simply a deep diabolical trick on the part of General Blanco. He 
foresaw disaster somewhere, and in case it should come he wanted to have some 
one high in authority upon whom he could shove a portion if not all of the 
blame for any loss which might accrue to Spain and for which he was held 
responsible. General Blanco then ordered Cervera to remain in Santiago and 
assist in the defence of the shore batteries. Admiral Cervera protested strongly 
against this and appealed to Spain, but it is doubtful if his appeal ever reached 
the Government. He asked to be allowed to coal up and then leave Santiago, 
where he might be free to meet the American fleet, rather than to be bottled 
up in a blockaded harbor. He contended that he could not possibly be useful 
to Spain by remaining in Santiago harbor with the certainty of American ships 
coming to keep him there, whereas, outside and free, his strong fleet could be 
of great value to the Spanish cause. 

" The answer of General Blanco was that Admiral Cervera was now subject 
to his orders, and that he, and not Admiral Cervera, was in command of affairs 
in Cuba, and that the Admiral must obey his command. Cervera could then 
do nothing. 

" After the Merrimac affair, which made the name of Lieutenant Hobson im- 
mortal and made Admiral Cervera, by his kindly treatment of the prisoner, 
well regarded by Americans when he came to be a prisoner himself, Cervera 
was fully aware that he could still get out of Santiago harbor if he had per- 
mission to do so. His immediate investigation showed that the channel was 
not entirely closed and that his ships could pass out. Finally, when fully 
aware that the strong American fleet were waiting for him outside of the 
harbor, as he was completely informed of the movements of the Americans 
at all times, he concluded that he would do his best to defend the city, as 
it would at that time be certain destruction to attempt to run out of the 



ADMIRAL CERVERA'S STATEMENT. 543 

harbor. The time to escape had already passed, and he became resigned to do 
his best. 

" Then one night an order came to him from General Blanco to be ready to 
sail out of the harbor within twenty-four hours and fixing one o'clock in the 
morning for the time of departure, when, it was argued by General Blanco, the 
Americans would be taken by surprise and probably off their guard and the 
escape could be made. Admiral Cervera protested strongly against this, main- 
taining that the American commanders were too shrewd not to double and 
treble their guard at night, and pointed out to General Blanco that one o'clock 
in the morning would be a very bad time to start, if indeed he should insist 
upon the order to get out of the harbor. 

" Admiral Cervera did not know at that time of the villainy of Blanco in 
telegraphing to Madrid asking that Cervera be removed from command of the 
fleet and Commodore Villamil be placed in command. Then later, when the 
fleet was destroyed, Blanco sent another telegram stating that it was the fault 
of the Minister of Marine in not heeding his advice and granting his request 
to remove Cervera. 

" Blanco was fully aware that to leave Santiago meant the destruction of the 
fleet, and he waited to again shift the blame, and so made the request for the 
change of commanders, which he knew would not and could not be made, but 
he nevertheless had an excuse and some one to blame for not accepting his 
counsel. General Blanco knew that the action which he ordered must mean 
the destruction of the fleet, and he actually hoped and believed that it would 
mean the death of Admiral Cervera, so that he could not make answer to the 
charges which Blanco proposed to make against him. 

" The same vile treachery of General Blanco is also shown in his conduct 
toward General Toral, who he first ordered to surrender the city when it be- 
came actually necessary to do so and the siege could no longer be endured, and 
then publicly accused of cowardice when he and his command had laid down 
their arms in honorable surrender. 

" Every one of Admiral Cervera's crew, of course, knew that in attempting 
to escape from Santiago harbor at the time they did meant not only the loss of 
their vessels, but probably death to them. They knew that the course the} 7 
were entering upon by order of General Blanco was one of suicide, and all ex- 
pected to find graves at the bottom of the sea. But the fleet would not have 
attempted the escape had it not been for the command of Blanco, and the only 
concession which Admiral Cervera could obtain from the Captain-General was 
a change in the time of departure. 

" It is true that Admiral Cervera and some of his officers and crew attempted 
to escape by swimming to the shore, but there the} r found another obstacle and 
were fired upon by a force of men whom it was afterward learned were Cubans 
under command of Colonel Candelaris Cebrecos. The Spaniards have no cause 
for complaint at the treatment received at their hands, for when the rank of 



544 ARMY AND NAVY BEFORE SANTIAGO. 

their prisoners was ascertained they were taken to the Cuban camp and after- 
ward surrendered to the American commanders and distributed among the 
American ships. 

" The remainder is all history, but the world at large has never known the 
real inside facts or the cause which led to the destruction of the pride of the 
Spanish navy, and the blame has never been properly attached. History 
knows that the Spanish Cape Verde fleet was destroyed by superior American 
forces, but it does not know of the wilful treachery, incompetency, and das- 
tardly villainy of those who were responsible for it, and Admiral Cervera will 
in the end be vindicated." 



ARMY AND NAVY BEFORE SANTIAGO. 

Report of Admiral Sampson to Secretary of the Navy. 

" On July 1, a demonstration was made by a Michigan volunteer regiment 
at Aguadores, under command of General Duffield. The New York, Glouces- 
ter, and Suwanee moved up at the request of the army to assist in an attack 
which was to begin at daylight, but the troops who came by rail did not arrive 
until 9:20. 

" The small river San Juan cuts through a deep defile and is spanned by an 
iron railroad bridge. There is an ancient fort near the water, and on the hills 
two small rifle-pits. Some sixteen or twenty of the enemy had been encoun- 
tered while waiting for the troops, but disappeared when the ships began firing. 
The troops advanced so far as the bridge, a corner of the fort was knocked off 
by the shells of the navy, and the flagstaff was shot away. Desultory firing 
was kept up between our troops and the Spanish, the troops returning to Sib- 
oney about half-past ten. 

" On the evening of July 1 the Admiral was advised by General Shafter that 
the army would assault at daylight on the 2d, and the navy was requested to 
keep up a fire at the batteries on the bluff. The squadron consequently closed 
in early on the morning of the 2d, and kept up a vigorous fire for two hours, 
but the attack proposed by General Shafter did not take place on that day. 

" On the night of July 1 the Reina Mercedes was sunk by the Spaniards so 
as to obstruct the ships. Extensive shore batteries existed, and if smaller 
vessels had been sent in and sunk by the mines or batteries, the harbor would 
have been effectually closed against us. 

" It was essential to the new scheme of attack of the combined forces that 
the position occupied by the eastern and western batteries should be carried, 
and this was the scheme of action first proposed by General Shafter on the day 
of his first arrival. It was at that time explained to him that it was of pri- 
mary importance that these points should first be carried, as their possession 



ARMY AND NAVY BEFORE SANTIAGO. 545 

insured the destruction of the mines, the entrance of heavy ships into the har- 
bor, and the assault on Cervera's fleet. 

" This was heartily consented to by General Shafter, who stated that the en- 
trance to the harbor was the key to the situation. This was repeated in his 
interview with General Garcia at Aserraderos. 

" It had been the Admiral's desire to do eveiything possible to cooperate with 
General Shafter. Such an attack as that proposed by the General was in com- 
plete accord with the views held by the Admiral and discussed with his staff. 
It was proposed to bring up the marines from Guantanamo and add them to 
the marines of the squadron, thus making a force of nearly a thousand men, 
which might be landed either at the foot of the Morro in Estrella Cove, to as- 
sault the Morro, or to the westward, for the purpose of assaulting the west 
battery ; at the same time detaching a force of two or three thousand men from 
the army and proceeding by Aguadores, to occupy the ground between the 
Morro and that just to the northward of it. A visit to General Shafter was 
arranged, but the Admiral being ill, his chief of staff went instead. The fol- 
lowing arrangement was made : 

" Camp near San Juan River, Cuba, July 6, 1898. — Minutes of a conversa- 
tion between Captain Chadwick of the navy, representing Admiral Sampson 
and General Shafter. 

" That a long-continuing bombardment be made of Santiago from the sea, 
with the heavier guns of the fleet, the fleet firing slowly and continually dur- 
ing, say, twenty-four hours, at the rate of one shell every five minutes, except- 
ing one hour, at the rate of one every two minutes. This refers to the eight- 
inch and thirteen-inch shells. 

" If this be not sufficient to bring the enemy to terms, that an assault be ar- 
ranged on the Socapa battery, using marines and the Cuban forces under Gen- 
eral Cebrecos, and an effort made to enter the harbor, with some of the smaller 
ships of the squadron. This attack to be made upon knowing the result of a 
second demand made upon the commanding officer of the Spanish forces for 
the surrender of the place, stating to him the conditions that surround him ; 
destruction of the Spanish fleet, etc., etc., and the number of forces opposed to 
him. To give him time to consider the matter, the date of the bombardment 
is fixed at noon of the 9th unless he positively refuses to consider it at all, 
when it will be begun at such time as is convenient to ourselves. General 
Shafter will furnish Admiral Sampson with correct map,'showing where his 
lines will be surrounding the city, and also open telegraphic communication by 
the way of Siboney down to near Aguadores, to give information as to the fall- 
ing of shots. 

" This was followed by the following correspondence : 

" The General-in-Chief commanding the Spanish forces, Santiago de Cuba: 

" Sir : 1. In view of the events of the 3d inst., I have the honor to lay before 



546 



ARMY AND NAVY BEFORE SANTIAGO. 



your Excellency certain propositions, to which I trust your Excellency will 
give the consideration which in my opinion they deserve. 

" 2. I enclose a bulletin of the engagement of Sunday morning,' which re- 
sulted in the complete destruction of Admiral Cervera's fleet, the loss of 600 
of his officers and men, and the capture of the remainder. The Admiral, Gen- 
eral, Paredes, and all others who escaped alive are now prisoners on board the 
Harvard and St. Louis, and the later ship, in which are the Admiral, General 
Paredes, and the surviving captains (all except the Captain of the Almirante 
Oquendo, who was slain), has already sailed for the United States. If desired 
by you, this may be confirmed by your Excellency sending an officer under a 
flag of truce to Admiral Sampson, and he can arrange a visit to the Harvard 
which will not sail until to-morrow, and obtain the details from Spanish officers 
and men aboard that ship. 

" 3. Our fleet is now perfectly free to act, and I have the honor to state that 
unless a surrender be arranged by noon of the 9th instant, a bombardment of 
the city will be begun and continued with the heavy guns of our ships. The 
city is within easy range of these guns, the eight-iuch being capable of firing 
9,500 3'ards, the thirteen-inch, of course, much further. The ships can so lie 
that with a range of 8,000 yards they can reach the centre of the city. 

" 4. I make this suggestion of a surrender purely in a humanitarian spirit. 
I do not wish to cause the slaughter of any more men either of your Excel- 
lency's forces or my own ; the final result under circumstances so disadvan- 
tageous to your Excellency being a foregone conclusion. 

" 5. As your Excellencj r may wish to make reference of so momentous a 
question to your Excellency's home government, it is for this purpose that I 
have placed the time of the resumption of hostilities sufficiently far in the fu- 
ture to allow a reply being received. 

" 6. I beg an early answer from your Excellency. 

" I have the honor to be your Excellency's obedient servant, 

" William R. Shafter, Major-General, U. S. V. 

" Commanding Fifth Army Corps." 




PART II. MILITARY REPORTS. 

General Shafter's Report. 

" Camp Before Santiago, Cuba, July 18, 1898. 

" I take the liberty of sending to you this morning a copy of the agreement, 
between the Commissioners on my part and the Commissioners on the part of 
the Government of Spain for the surrender of eastern Cuba. The schedule just 
submitted shows there to be a little over 22,000 men and officers, about 6,000 
more men than I have had myself; and I am glad to say that we have got all 
these men with very little loss of life, compared to what it would have been had 
we had to have fought them. The city of Santiago is simply a network of 
fortifications at every street corner. I had no proper conception of its strength 
until I went into it, although I knew these old stone towns were naturally very 
strong. Everything is going admirably, so far as the transfer is concerned, 
and the Spanish troops are behaving well, as they are perfectly delighted at 
the thought of getting home. 

" I send to you personally a telegram of General Linares to his Government, 
which one of the Consuls gave me. It shows the straits to which they were 
put and the feelings that animated them. He stated the case exactly. I did 
have him so surrounded that it was impossible for him to get away, and I could 
wait and he could not. 

" I send out to-morrow morning to receive something over 2,000 men up in 
the interior a short distance, about thirty miles, and in two or three days will 
send to Guantanamo to receive the 7,000 that have surrendered there. Thej r 
should be shipped from Guantanamo Bay direct to Spain. There are also 
about 800 men each from Baracoa and Saguabe Tamamo on the north coast, 
who will come into the port there for shipment. I will send an officer around 
with a Spanish officer to take their arms and military supplies. We have got- 
ten a great deal more than I had any idea of getting in the way of munitions of 
war. In everything but food they were well supplied. Have got a few beau- 
tiful, modern, high-power guns — about a dozen. 

" My only fear is that we will have some sickness ; and it is for that reason 

that I have wired you so earnestly about getting these prisoners away, so that 

we can go up in the mountains with my command, fifteen or twenty miles, at 

the end of the railroad, at San Luis, which is said to be vevy healthy. It is, at 

80 (547) 



548 GENERAL SHAFTER'S REPORT. 

any rate, about 1,500 feet above the sea, and has communication by rail with 
Santiago. So far there is no fever in Santiago. I suppose there is no one 
there except immunes. Three cases only so far this year, and the English 
Consul tells me there was very little last year. 

" Of those here who served throughout the Civil War all declare they never 
had anything that could compare with it for hardship. With only one set of 
clothes, officers have been until now rained on nearly every day, carrying three 
days' rations like the men on their person, and suffering every privation that 
any man can added to all these privations ; in addition, all the horrors of dis- 
ease in an unknown land, and very limited accommodations should they be 
wounded. The spirit shown by them and by the whole army was simply 
grand. I can recall no instance where a greater surrender has been made than 
this. The final surrender of General Toral and his generals to myself and my 
generals was highly dramatic, as well as the hoisting of the flag over the city 
of Santiago, one of the oldest cities in this continent. 

" I want to thank you and the President for the words of cheer that have 
come to us, and to say that none of us has ever doubted that every effort possi- 
ble to make our lives as secure and our situation as comfortable as is possible 
would be done. 

" W. R. Shafter, 
" Major-General Commanding." 



In a more extended report, condensed by the War Department, Gen- 
eral Shafter says : 

The expedition under his command, sailed from Tampa with 815 officers and 
16,012 enlisted men. The orders were given by telegraph on May 30. 

'' Admiral Schley reports that two cruisers and two torpedo boats have been 
seen in the harbor of Santiago. Go with your force to capture garrison at 
Santiago and assist in capturing harbor and fleet. 

" On the morning of June 20 we arrived off Guantanamo Bay, and about 
noon reached the vicinity of Santiago, where Admiral Sampson came on board 
my headquarters transport. It was arranged between us to visit in the after- 
noon the Cuban General (Garcia) at Aserradero, about eighteen miles to the 
west of the Morro. During the interview General Garcia offered the services 
of his troops, comprising about 4,000 men in the vicinity of Aserradero and 
about 500, under General Castillo, at the little town of Cujababo, a few miles 
east of Baiquiri. I accepted his offer, impressing it upon him that I could 
exercise no military control over him except such as he would concede, 
and as long as he served under me I would furnish him rations and ammuni- 
tion. 

" Ever since the receipt of my orders I had made a study of the terrain sur- 



GENERAL SHAFTER'S REPORT. 649 

rounding Santiago, gathering information mainly from former residents of the 
city, several of whom were on the transports with me. At this interview all 
the possible points of attack were for the last time carefully weighed, and then, 
for the information and guidance of Admiral Sampson and General Garcia, I 
outlined the plan of campaign, which was as follows: 

" With the assistance of the small boats of the navy, the disembarkation was 
to commence on the morning of the twenty-second at Baiquiri. On the twenty- 
first 500 insurgent troops were to be transferred from Aserradero to Cujababo, 
increasing the force already there to 1,000 men. This force, under General 
Castillo, was to attack the Spanish force at Baiquiri in the rear at the time of 
disembarkation. This movement was successfully made. To mislead the 
enemy as to the real point of our intended landing, I requested General Garcia 
to send a small force (about 500 men), under General Kabi, to attack the little 
town of Cabanis, situated on the coast a few miles to the west of the entrance 
to Santiago harbor, and where it was reported the enemy had several hundred 
men intrenched, and from which a trail leads around the west side of the bay 
to Santiago. 

" I also requested Admiral Sampson to send several of his warships, with 
a number of ray transports, opposite this town, for the purpose of making a 
show of disembarking there. In addition, I asked the Admiral to cause a 
bombardment to be made at Cabanis, and also at the ports around the 
Morro, and at the towns of Aguadores, Sibone}' and Baiquiri. The troops 
under General Garcia remaining at Aserradero were to be transferred to 
Baiquiri or Siboney on the twenty-fourth. This was successfully accomplished 
at Siboney. 

" These movements committed me to approaching Santiago from the cast 
over a narrow road, at first in some places not better than a trail, running from 
Baiquiri through Siboney and Sevilla, and making attack from that quarter. 
This, in my judgment, was the only feasible plan, and subsequent information 
and results confirmed my judgment. 

" On the 23d General Lawton's advance reached Siboney and the disembark- 
ation of Kent's division on that date enabled Shafter to establish a base eight 
miles nearer Santiago and to proceed with disembarkation at both points. 
General Shafter continues with details of movements up to the battle of El 
Caney, July 1, concerning which he says: 

" These preparations were far from what I desired them to be, but we were 
in a sickly climate; our supplies had to be brought forward by a narrow wagon 
road, which the rains might at any time render impassable ; fear was enter- 
tained that a storm might drive the vessels containing our stores to sea, thus 
separating us from our base of supplies, and, lastly, it was reported that Gen- 
eral Pando, with 8,000 reinforcements for the enemy, was enroute from 
Manzanillo, and might be expected in a few days. Under these conditions I 
determined to give battle without delay. 



550 GENERAL SHAFTER'S REPORT. 

" The disposition of the several bodies of troops is given, their formation under 
fire (in which Colonel Wikoff was killed), and the results of their movements 
are set forth in detail, and General Shafter adds : 

" After completing their formation under a destructive fire, and advancing a 
short distance, both divisions (Kent's and Hawkins's) found in their front a 
wide bottom in which there had been placed a barbed-wire entanglement, and 
beyond which there was a high hill, along the crest of which the enemy was 
strongly posted. Nothing daunted, these gallant men pushed on to drive 
the enemy from his chosen position, both divisions losing heavily. In this 
assault Colonel Hamilton and Lieutenants Smith and Sbipp were killed, and 
Colonel Carroll and Lieutenants Thayer and Myer, all in the cavalry, were 
wounded. 

" Great credit is due to Brigadier-General H. S. Hawkins, who, placing him- 
self between his regiments, urged them on by voice and bugle call to the attack 
so brilliantly executed. In this fierce encounter words fail to do justice to the 
gallant regimental commanders and their heroic men, for, while the General 
indicated the formations and the points of attack, it was, after all, the intrepid 
bravery of the subordinate officers and men that planted our colors on the crest 
of San Juan Hill and drove the enemy from his trenches and blockhouses, thus 
gaining a position which sealed the fall of Santiago. In this action on this 
part of the field most efficient service was rendered by Lieutenant John 
H. Parker, Thirteenth Infantry, and the Gatling gun detachment under 
his command. The fighting continued at intervals until nightfall, but our 
men held resolutely to the position gained at the cost of so much blood and 
toil. 

" I am greatly indebted to General Wheeler, who, as previously stated, re- 
turned from the sick list to duty during the afternoon. His cheerfulness and 
aggressiveness made itself felt on this part of the battlefield, and the information 
furnished to me at various stages of the battle proved to be most useful. My 
own health was impaired by overexertion in the sun and the intense heat of the 
day before, which prevented me from participating as actively in the battle as 
I desired, but from a high hill near my headquarters I had a general view of 
the battlefield extending from El Caney on the right to the left of our lines on 
San Juan Hill. My staff officers were stationed at various points on the field, 
rendering frequent reports, and through them, by the means of orderlies and 
the telephone, I was enabled to transmit my orders. 

" During the afternoon I visited the position of Grimes's battery on the 
heights of El Pozo. and saw Sumner and Kent in firm possession of San Juan 
Hill, which I directed should be intrenched during the night. My regular 
officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Derby, collected and sent forward the necessary 
tools, and during the night trenches of very considerable strength were con- 
structed. 

" The cessation of firing at noon on July 3 practically ended the battle of 



GENERAL SHAFTER'S REPORT. 551 

Santiago. General Shatter says it is doubtful if he had more than 12,000 men 
on the firing line on July 1, when the battle was fiercest and when the impor- 
tant and strong positions of El Caney and San Juan were captured. 

" A few Cubans assisted in the attack at El Caney and fought valiantly, but 
their numbers were too small to materially change the strength, as indicated 
above. The enemy confronted us with numbers about equal to our own ; they 
fought obstinately in strong and intrenched positions and the results obtained 
clearly indicate the intrepid gallantry of the company officers and men and the 
benefits derived from the careful training and instruction given in the company 
in recent years in rifle practice and other battle exercises. Our losses in these 
battles were twenty-two officers and 208 men killed and eighty-one officers and 
1,203 men wounded; missing, seventy-nine. The missing, with lew exceptions, 
reported later. 

" In the battle of Santiago the Spanish Navy endeavored to shell our troops 
on the extreme right, but the latter were concealed by the inequalities of the 
ground, and the shells did little, if any, harm. Their naval forces also assisted 
in the trenches, having 1,000 on shore, and I am informed they sustained con- 
siderable loss; among others Admiral Cervera's chief of stall' was killed. Being 
convinced the city would fall, Admiral Cervera determined to put to sea, in- 
forming the French Consul it was better to die fighting than to sink his ships. 
The news of the great naval victory which followed was enthusiastically re- 
ceived by the army. 

"The information of our naval victory was transmitted under flag of truce to 
the Spanish commander in Santiago on July 4, and the suggestion again made 
that he surrender to save needless effusion of blood. On the same date I in- 
formed Admiral Sampson that if he would force his way into the harbor the 
city would surrender without any further sacrifice of life. Commodore Watson 
replied that Admiral Sampson was temporarily absent, but that in his (Wat- 
son's) opinion the navy should not enter the harbor. 

"July 12, I informed the Spanish commander that Major-General Miles, 
Commander-in-Chief of the Army, had just arrived in my camp, and requested 
him to grant us a personal interview on the following da}'. He replied that he 
would be pleased to meet us. The interview took place on the 13th, and I in- 
formed him that his surrender only could be considered, and that as he was 
without hope of escape he had no right to continue the fight. 

" At two p. m. on July 11 the surrender of the city was again demanded. 
The firing ceased and was not again renewed. 

" By this date the sickness in the army was increasing very rapidly, as a 
result of exposure in the trenches to the intense heat of the sun and the heavy 
rains. Moreover, the dews in Cuba are almost equal to rains. The weakness 
of the troops was becoming so apparent I was anxious to bring the siege to an 
end, but in common with most of the officers of the army I did not think an 



552 GENERAL SHAFTER'S REPORT. 

assault would be justifiable, especially as the enemy seemed to be acting in 
good faith in their preliminary propositions to surrender. 

" I wish to dwell upon the natural obstacles I had to encounter and which no 
foresight could have overcome or obviated. The rocky and precipitous coast 
offered no sheltered landing places, the roads were mere bridle paths, the effect 
of the tropical sun and rains upon unacclimated troops was deadly and a dread 
of strange and unknown diseases had its effect on the army. At Baiquiri the 
landing of the troops and stores was made at a small wooden wharf which the 
Spaniards tried to burn, but unsuccessfully, and the animals were pushed into 
the water and guided to a sandy beach about 200 yards in extent. At Siboney 
the landing was made on the beach and at a small wharf occupied by the engi- 
neers. I had neither the time nor the men to spare to construct permanent 
wharves. In spite of the fact that I had nearly 1,000 men continuously at 
work on the roads, they were at times impassable for wagons. 

" The San Juan and Aguadores rivers would often suddenly rise so as to 
prevent the passage of wagons, and then the eight pack trains with the com- 
mand had to be depended upon for the victualing of ni}' army, as well as the 
20,000 refugees, who could not in the interests of humanity, be left to starve 
while we had rations. Often for days nothing could be moved except on pack 
trains. 

" After the great physical strain and exposure of July 1 and 2 the malarial 
and other fevers began to rapidly advance throughout the command, and on 
July 4 the 3 r ellow fever appeared at Siboney. Though efforts were made to 
keep this fact from the army it soon became known. 

" The supply of quartermaster and commissary stores during the campaign 
was abundant, and, notwithstanding the difficulties in landing and transporting 
the ration, the troops on the firing lines were at all times supplied with its 
coarser components, namely of bread, meat, sugar and coffee. 

" There was no lack of transportation, for at no time up to the surrender 
could all the wagons I had be used. 

" In reference to the sick and wounded, I have to sa}' that they received 
every attention that it was possible to give them. The medical officers without 
exception worked night and day to alleviate the suffering, which was no greater 
than invariably accompanies a campaign. It would have been better if we had 
had more ambulances, but as many were taken as was thought necessary, 
judging from previous campaigns. The discipline of the command was superb, 
and I wish to invite attention to the fact that no officer was brought to trial by 
court-martial and, as far as I know, no enlisted men. This speaks volumes for 
an army of this size and in a campaign of such duration." 



GENERAL WHEELER'S REPORT. 553 

General Joseph Wheeler's Operations. 

" Before Santiago, Cuba, July 7, 1898. 
" To Adjutant-General, Fifth Army Corps : 

"Sir: After the engagements of June 24 I pushed forward my command 
through the valley, Law ton's and Kent's commands occupying the hills in the 
vicinity of that place. After two days' rest Lawton was ordered for wind, and 
on the night of the 30th instructions were given by Major-General Shatter to 
this officer to attack Caney, while the cavalry division and Kent's division 
were ordered to move forward on the regular Santiago roads. The movement 
commenced on the morning of July 1. The cavalry division advanced and 
formed its line with its left near the Santiago road, while Kent's division 
formed its line with the right joining the left of the cavalry division. 

" Colonel McClernand of General Shaffer's staff directed me to give instruc 
tions to General Kent, which I complied with in person, at the same time per. 
sonally directing General Sumner to move forward. The men were all com. 
pelled to wade the San Juan River to get into line. This was done under very 
heavy fire of both infantry and artillery. Our balloon, having been sent up 
right by the main road, was made a mark of by the enemy. It was evident 
that we were as much under fire in forming the line as we would be by an 
advance, and I therefore pressed the command forward from the covering under 
which it was formed. It merged into open space in full view of the enemy, 
who occupied breastworks and batteries on the crest of the hill which over- 
looks Santiago, officers and men falling at every step. 

" The troops advanced gallantly, soon reached the foot of the hill md as- 
cended, driving the enemy from their works and occupying them on the crest 
of the hill. To accomplish this required courage and determination on the 
part of the officers and men of a high order and the losses were very severe. 
Too much credit cannot be given to General Sumner and General Kent, and 
their gallant brigade commanders, Colonel Wood and Colonel Carroll of the 
cavalry; General Hamilton S. Hawkins, commanding First Brigade; Kent's 
division, and Colonel Pearson, commanding Second Brigade. Colonel Carroll 
and Major Wessels were both wounded during the charge, but Major Wessells 
was enabled to return and resume command. Colonel Wikoff, commanding 
Kent's Third Brigade, was killed at 12:10; Lieutenant-Colonel Worth took 
command, and was wounded at 12:15; Lieutenant-Colonel Liscum then took 
command and was wounded at 12:20, and the command then devolved upon 
Lieutenant-Colonel Ewers, Ninth Infantry. 

" Upon reaching the crest I ordered breastworks to be constructed, and sent 
to the rear for shovels, picks, spades, and axes. The enemy's retreat from the 
ridge was precipitate, but our men were so thoroughly exhausted that it was 
impossible for them to follow. Their shoes were soaked with water by wading 
the San Juan River, they had become drenched with rain, and when they 



554 GENERAL WHEELER'S REPORT. 

reached the crest they were absolutely unable to proceed further. Notwith- 
standing this condition, these exhausted men labored during the night to erect 
breastworks, furnish details to bury the dead, and carry the wounded back in 
improvised litters. I sent word along the line that reinforcements would soon 
reach us, and that Lawton would join our right and that General Bates would 
come up and strengthen our left. 

" After reaching the crest of the ridge, General Kent sent the Thirteenth 
Regulars to assist in strengthening our right. At midnight General Bates re- 
ported, and I placed him in a strong position on the left of our line. General 
Lawton had attempted to join us from Caney, but when very near our lines he 
was fired upon by the Spaniards, and turned back, but joined us next day at 
noon by a circuitous route. During all the day on July 2, the cavalry divi- 
sion, Kent's division, and Bates's brigade were engaged with the enemy, being 
subjected to a fierce fire and incurring many casualties, and later in the day 
Lawton's division also became engaged. 

"During the entire engagement my staff performed their duties with cour- 
age, judgment, and ability. Special credit is due to Lieutenant-Colonel J. H. 
Dorst, Major William D. Beach, Captain Joseph G. Dickman, and Lieutenant 
M. F. Steele. I desire also to say that Lieutenants James H. Reeves and 
Joseph Wheeler, Jr., Captain William Astor Chanler, Major B. A. Garlington, 
Mr. Aurelius Mestre, and Corporal John Lundmark also deserve high com- 
mendation for courage and good conduct. Major West, my Quartermaster, 
deserves special commendation for bis energy and good conduct during the 
campaign, and Major Valery Havard and Mr. Leonard Wilson have also done 
their full duty. Captain Hardie and First Lieutenant F. J. Koester, with 
Troop G, Third Cavalry, were detailed with headquarters and conducted them- 
selves handsomely under fire. The superb courage displayed by the officers 
and men will be especially mentioned in the reports of subordinate com- 
manders. 

" Joseph Wheeler, 
"Major-General, Volunteers. 

" Accompanying the report is a copy of the despatches which were sent to 
General Shafter by General Wheeler, beginning June 25 and ending July 2. 
On July 1, at 8;20 p. m., General Wheeler, writing from San Juan, has the fol- 
lowing to say about withdrawing from the position we had won : 

" I examined the line in front of Wood's brigade, and gave the men shovels 
and picks, and insisted on their going right to work. I also sent word to Gen- 
eral Kent to come and get entrenching tools, and saw General Hawkins in per- 
son, and told him the same thing. They all promise to do their best, but say 
the earth is very difficult, as a great part of it is rocky. The positions our 
men carried were very strong and the entrenchments were very strong. 

" A number of officers have appealed to me to have the line withdrawn, and 
take up a strong position farther back, and I expect they will appeal to you. I 



GENERAL KENT'S REPORT. 555 

have positively discountenanced this, as it would cost us much prestige. The 
lines are very thin, as so many men have gone to the rear wounded and so 
many are exhausted, but I hope these men can be got up to-night, and, with 
our line intrenched and Lawton on our right, we ought to hold to-morrow, but 
I fear it will be a severe day. 

" If we can get through to-morrow all right, we can make our breastworks 
very strong the next night. You can hardly realize the exhausted condition 
of the troops. The Third and Sixth Cavalry and other troops were up march- 
ing, and halted on the road all last night, and have fought for twelve hours 
to-day, and those that are not on the line will be digging trenches to-night. 

" I was on the extreme front line. The men were lying down, and reported 
the Spaniards not more than 300 yards in their front." 



Operations Around Santiago. 

" Headquarters First Division, Fifth Army Corps in the Field, 
" Fort San Juan, Near Santiago de Cuba, July 7, 1898. 
" The Assistant Adjutant-General, Fifth Army Corps; 

" Sir: I have the honor to submit the following report of the operations of 
my command in the battle of July 1. 

" On the afternoon of June 30, pursuant to orders given me verbally b} r the 
corps commander at his headquarters, I moved my Second and Third Brigades 
(Pearson and Wikoff) forward about two miles to a point on the Santiago road 
near corps headquarters. Here the troops bivouaced, the First Brigade (Haw- 
kins) remaining in its camp of the two preceding days, slightly in the rear of 
corps headquarters. 

" On the following morning (July 1), at seven o'clock, I rode forward to the 
hill where Captain Grimes's battery was in position. I here met Lieutenant- 
Colonel McClernand, Assistant Adjutant-General, Fifth Corps, who pointed out 
to me a green hill in the distance, which was to be my objective on ni}' left, and 
either he or Lieutenant Miley of Major-General Shafter's staff gave me di- 
rections to keep ni} - right on the main road leading to the city of Santiago. I 
had previously given the necessary orders for Hawkins's brigade to move earl}', 
to be followed in turn by Wikoff and Pearson. Shortly after Grimes's battery 
opened fire I rode down to the stream and there found General Hawkins at the 
head of his brigade, at a point about 250 yards from the El Pozo sugar house. 
Here 1 gave him his orders. 

" The enemy's artillery was now replying to Grimes's battery. I rode for- 
ward with Hawkins about 150 yards, closely followed by the Sixth Infantry, 
which was leading the First Brigade. At this point I received instructions to 
allow the cavalry the right of way, but for some unknown reason they moved 
up very slowly, thus causing a delay in my advance of fully forty minutes. 



556 GENERAL KENT'S REPORT. 

Lieutenant Miley of General Shafter's staff was at this point and understood 
how the division was delayed, and repeated several times that he understood I 
was making all the progress possible. General Hawkins went forward, and 
word came back in a few minutes that it would be possible to observe the 
enemy's position from the front. I immediately rode forward with my staff. 
The fire of the enemy's sharpshooters was being distinctly felt at this time. I 
crossed the main ford of the San Juan River, joined General Hawkins, and, 
with him, observed the enemy's position from a point some distance in advance 
of the ford. General Hawkins deemed it possible to turn the enemy's right at 
Fort San Juan, but later, under the heavy fire, this was found impracticable 
for the First Brigade, but was accomplished by the Third Brigade coming up 
later on General Hawkins's left. Having completed the observation with my 
staff, I proceeded to join the head of my division, just coming under heavy fire. 
Approaching the First Brigade, I directed them to move alongside the cavalry, 
which was halted. We were already suffering losses caused by the balloon near 
by attracting fire and disclosing our position. 

" The enemy's infantry fire, steadily increasing in intensity, now came from 
all directions, not only from the front and the deuse tropical thickets on our 
flanks, but from sharpshooters thickly posted in trees in our rear, and from 
shrapnel apparently aimed at the balloon. Lieutenant-Colonel Derby of General 
Shafter's staff met me about this time and informed me that a trail or narrow 
way had been discovered from the balloon a short distance back leading to the left 
to a ford lower down the stream. I hastened to the forks made by this road, and 
soon after the Seventy-first New York Regiment of Hawkins's Brigade came 
up. I turned them into the bypath indicated by Lieutenant-Colonel Derby 
leading to the lower ford, sending word to General Hawkins of this movement. 
Tli is would have speedily delivered them in their proper place on the left of 
their brigade, but under the galling fire of the enemy the leading battalion of 
this regiment was thrown into confusion and recoiled in disorder on the troops 
in the rear. At this critical moment the officers of my staff practically formed 
a cordon behind the panic-stricken men, and urged them to again go forward. 
I finally ordered them to lie down in the thicket and clear the way for others 
of their own regiment who were coming up behind. This many of them did, 
and the Second and Third battalions came forward in better order and moved 
along the road toward the ford. 

" One of my staff officers ran back, waving his hat to hurry forward the 
Third Brigade, who, upon approaching the forks, found the way blocked by 
men of the Seventy-first New York. There were other men of this regiment 
crouching in the bushes, many of whom were encouraged b} r the advance of the 
approaching column to rise and go forward. As already stated, I had received 
orders some time before to keep in rear of the cavalry division. Their ad- 
vance was much delayed, resulting in frequent halts, presumably to drop their 
blanket rolls, and due to the natural delay in fording a stream. These delays, 



GENERAL KENT'S REPORT. 557 

under such a hot fire, grew exceedingly irksome and I therefore pushed the 
head of iny division as quickly as I could toward the river in column of files 
or twos, paralleled in the narrow way by the cavalry. This quickened the for- 
ward movement and enabled me to get into position as speedily as possible for 
the attack. Owing to the congested condition of the road the progress of the 
narrow columns was, however, painfull}' slow. I again sent a staff oflicer at a 
gallop to urge forward the troops in rear. The head of Wikoff's brigade 
reached the forks at 12:20 p. M. and hurried on the left, stepping over prostrate 
forms of men of the Seventy-first. This heroic brigade (consisting of the 
Thirteenth, Ninth, and Twenty-fourth United States Infantry) speedily crossed 
the stream and were quickly deployed to the left of the lower ford. While per- 
sonally superintending this movement Colonel Wikoff was killed, the command 
of the brigade then devolving upon Lieutenant-Colonel Worth, Thirteenth In- 
fantry, who immediately fell, severely wounded, and then upon Lieutenant- 
Colonel Liscum, Twenty-fourth Infantry, who, five minutes later, also fell un- 
der the withering fire of the enemy. The command of the brigade then de- 
volved upon Lieutenant-Colonel E. P. Ewers, Ninth Infantry. 

" Meanwhile, I had again sent a staff officer to hurry forward the Second 
Brigade, which was bringing up the rear. The Tenth and Second Infantry, 
soon arriving at the forks, were deflected to the left to follow the Third Brigade, 
while the Twenty-first was directed along the main road to support Hawkins. 

" Crossing the lower ford a few minutes later, the Tenth and Second moved 
forward in column in good order toward the green knoll already referred to as 
my objective on the left. Approaching the knoll the regiments deployed, 
passed over the knoll, and ascended the high ridge beyond, driving back the 
enemy in the direction of his trenches. I observed this movement from the 
Fort San Juan Hill. Colonel E. P. Pearson, Tenth Infantry, commanding the 
Second Brigade, and the officers and troops under his command deserve great 
credit for the soldierly manner in which this movement was executed. I 
earnestly recommend Colonel Pearson for promotion. 

" Prior to this advance of the Second Brigade the Third, connecting with 
Hawkins's gallant troops on the right, had moved toward Fort San Juan, 
sweeping through a zone of most destructive fire, scaling a steep and difficult 
hill, and assisting in capturing the enemy's strong position, Fort San Juan, at 
1:30 p. M. This crest was about 125 feet above the general level, and was 
defended by deep trenches and a loopholed brick fort surrounded by barbed wire 
entanglements. General Hawkins, some time after I reached the crest, reported 
that the Sixth and Sixteenth Infantry had captured the hill, which I now con- 
sider incorrect, and credit is almost equally due to the Sixth, Ninth, Thirteenth, 
Sixteenth, and Twenty-fourth regiments of Infantry. Owing to General 
Hawkins's representations I forwarded the report sent to corps headquarters 
about three p. m. that the Sixth and Sixteenth Infantry regiments had cap- 
tured the hill. The Thirteenth Infantry captured the enemy's colors waving 



558 GENERAL KENT'S REPORT. 

over the fort, but unfortunately destroyed them, distributing the fragments 
among the men, because, as was asserted, ' it was a bad omen,' two or three 
men having been shot while assisting Private Arthur Agnew, Company H, 
Thirteenth Infantry, the captor. All fragments which could be recovered are 
submitted with this report. The greatest credit is due to the officers of my 
command, whether compan}', battalion, regimental or brigade commanders, who 
so admirably directed the formation of their troops, unavoidably intermixed in 
the dense thicket, and made the desperate rush for the distant and strongly de- 
fended crest. 

" I have already mentioned the circumstances of my Third Brigade's advance 
across the ford, where in the brief space often minutes it lost its brave com- 
mander (killed) and the next two ranking officers by disabling wounds. Yet, 
in spite of these confusing conditions, the formations were effected without 
hesitation, although under a stinging fire, companies acting singly in some in- 
stances and by battalion and regiment in others, rushing through the jungle, 
across the stream waist deep, and over the wide bottom thickly set with barbed 
wire" entanglements. In this connection I desire to particularly mention First 
Lieutenant Wendell L. Simpson, Adjutant Ninth Infantry, Acting Assistant 
Adjutant-General Third Brigade, who was noticeably active and efficient in 
carrying out orders which I had given him to transmit to his brigade com- 
mander, who no longer existed. 

" The enemy having retired to a second line of rifle pits, I directed my line 
to hold their positions and intrench. At ten minutes past three P. M. I received 
almost simultaneously two requests — one from Colonel Wood, commanding a 
cavalry brigade, and one from General Sumner, asking for assistance for the 
cavalry on my right, 'as they were hard pressed.' I immediately sent to their 
aid the Thirteenth Infantry, who promptly went on this further mission, de- 
spite the heavy losses they had already sustained. 

" Great credit is due to the gallant officer and gentleman, Brigadier-General 
H. S. Hawkins, who, placing himself between the two regiments leading his 
brigade, the Sixth and the Sixteenth Infantry, urged and led them by voice 
and bugle calls to the attack so successfully accomplished. My earnest thanks 
are due to my staff* officers present at my side and under m}' personal observa- 
tion on the field, especially to Major A. C. Sharpe, Assistant Adjutant-Gen- 
eral ; Major Philip Reade, Inspector-General; Captain U. G. McAlexander, 
Chief Quartermaster, and my aides, First Lieutenant George S. Cartwright, 
Twenty-fourth Infantry, and First Lieutenant William R, Jackson, Second In- 
fantiy ; also to Mr. Adolfo Carlos Muiioz, the latter a volunteer aide, subse- 
quently wounded in the fight of the 2d inst., who richly merits a commission 
for his able assistance given without pay. 

" The officers enumerated should at least be brevetted for gallantry under 
fire. I also personally noticed the conduct of First Lieutenant T. J. Kirk- 
patrick, Assistant Surgeon, United States Army, on duty with the Twenty- 



GENERAL KENT'S REPORT. 



559 



fourth Infanty, giving most efficient aid to the wounded under fire. I observed 
several times First Lieutenant J. D. Mi ley, Fifth Artillery, aide to General 
Shafter, who was conspicuous throughout the day for his coolness under fire 
delivering instructions with apparent unconcern. The bloody fighting of my 
brave command cannot be adequately described in words. The following list 
of killed, wounded and missing tells the story of their valor : 



REPORT OF KILLED, WOUNDED AND MISSING, FIRST 
DIVISION, FIFTH ARMY CORPS, JULY 1, U 





Killed. 


Wounded 


5? 


Organization. 


S 
p 

1 

4 
5 
1 

_i 

1 
1 
2 
2 

,; 


s 

13 

13 
12 

38 

4 
5 
1 

10 

3 
16 
10 

29 

77| 


% 

rt ■ 

3 

5 
7 

1 

13 

5 
1 
4 

10 

5 

4 

9 
32l 


1 

82 
95 

47 

224 

21 
25 
16 

62 

23 
81 
73 

177 

463 


3 
I" 


First Brigade. 
Sixteenth Infanty 






6 


Seventy-first N. Y. Vol. Inf... 
Totals 


43 
49 


Second Brigade. 
Tenth Infantry 




Twenty-first Infantry 


•• 




- 




■ 


Third Brigade. 
Brigade Commander 




Ninth Infantry 


i 
i 

7 
9 


Thirteenth Infantry 


Twenty-fourth Infantry 




58 



" At daylight on the morning of July 2, the enemy resumed the battle, and 
firing continued throughout the day, part of the time in a drenching rain. At 
nightfall the firing ceased, but at nine p. m. a vigorous assault was made all 
along our lines. This was completely repulsed, the enemy again retiring to 
his trenches. The following morning firing was resumed and continued until 
near noon, when a white flag was displayed by the enemy and firing was 
ordered to cease. 



560 GENERAL KENT'S REPORT. 

" The casualties of these two days (July 2 and 3) are as follows; 

july 2, 1898. 





Killed. 


Worn 

Bo 


ided. 


S 5 


Organization. 


S 

2 


^ 
s 


Co 

1' 








1* 










First Brigade. 




1 
1 

2 


1 
1 


21 
2 

7 

30 






1 






Seventy-first N. Y. Vol. Inf... 
Totals 


1 






Second Brigade. 




1 
1 

4 

6 


•• 


14 

7 

31 

52 


3 










Totals 


3 






Third Brigade. 




1 
1 


2 

2 


4 
3 
1 

8 








Twenty-fourth Infantry 

Totals 













9 


4 


90 


4 



" General Kent's table of the casualties in the third day's fighting shows that 
only one man, a private in the Second Infantry, was killed. One man was 
wounded in the Sixteenth Infantry, two in the Sixth Infantry, four in the 
Seventy-first New York and one in the Thirteenth Infantry. No missing. 

''Grand total for July 1,2 and 3 — Twelve officers and eighty-seven men 
killed, thirty-six officers and 561 men wounded, sixty-two missing. 

" One hospital corps man attached to the Tenth Infantry, killed, is not in- 
cluded in the above report. 

" The report concludes : ' I desire in conclusion to express my gratitude to 
Major-General Joseph Wheeler for his courteous conduct to me and through 
me to my division under the trying circumstances enumerated. Though ill 
and suffering, General Wheeler was so perfectly at home under fire that he in- 
spired all of us with assurance.' 

" Attention is invited in this connection to the report of the brigade and 



*Mr. A. C. Mufioz, volunteer aide to Division Commander. 



GENERAL BRECKENRIDGE'S REPORT. 561 

subordinate commanders and of my Inspector-General herewith submitted. I 
cordially indorse their commendations. 

" Very respectfully, 

" J. Ford Kent, 
" Brigadier-General United States Volunteers, Commanding." 



Report of Inspector- General Breckenridge. 

" It was seldom, indeed, that the supplies were brought up to the fighting 
lines in any great excess of the immediate needs, and the entire absence of the 
usual comforts and conveniences of even the simplest arm}- life during the whole 
of the expedition, and sometimes of medical essentials, even in the hour of ut- 
most need, was one of its most marked features after landing. Even the shelter 
tents and flies were abandoned, and all bivouacked without the wall of the 
common tent. The energy with which every element was driven from first to 
last will be sufficiently understood when such men as General Shafter and Col- 
onels Humphrey and Watson had the task in hand. The means of expediting 
the landing of stores seemed inadequate, even to the last, and it is understood 
that lighter after lighter ordered to the Cuban coast was sunk at sea, and the 
lack of quick communication between the vessels or of any launches was ap- 
parently irremediable. The extent to which the transports suffered in their 
ground tackle, capstans, small boats, and other paraphernalia, and the dread 
their masters had of even a greater loss on such a surf-beaten, rock-bound 
shore was constantly shown, and the navy appeared to leave the army at last 
much to its own devices. 

" Nothing like the usual proportion of artillery," continues the report, " was 
present on the field to aid the other arms as accessories before the fact, and the 
comments on and results of this question came best from line officers of other 
arms. The remarkable marksmanship of our trained soldiers was hardly more 
exploited than the gross ignorance of our recruits. The books say that it 
ought not to be possible to successfully assault the enemy in front unshaken, 
still more with his fortified infantry under modern conditions. But in this 
instance dismounted cavalry, as well as its confrere of the infantry arm, did, 
without bayonets, successfully assault infantry posted on commanding ground 
and well entrenched, valiant and unshaken, and the difficult}- of the task indi- 
cated by the list of casualties, as compared with the actual numbers the imme- 
diately opposing trenches will hold. And when the fight was over, though 
successful eveiywhere, we had no reserves, Bates' Independent Brigade having 
been in the assault, first at Caney and then by a night march reinforcing the 
last at San Juan under most urgent calls. It was afterward supposed that the 
gap between our road and the ba}- was closed by Garcia's forces, and the de- 
mand for the surrender of the Spaniards was made prior to any knowledge of 



562 GENERAL BRECKENRIDGE'S REPORT. 

the intention of Cervera to escape with his fleet or of the arrival of the enemy's 
reinforcements. 

" Such a conjunction of evidence may indicate the rapidity of the changes 
in the situation. Indeed, the fighting of this army came up to the highest 
expectation, and accomplished results beyond what is usually expected of a 
force so constituted. 

" At early dawn on July 1, the troops of Lawton's division started in to the 
position previously designated to them to occupy. The one battery of artillery 
assigned to this division for the day occupied a position overlooking the village 
of El Caney, 2,400 yards distant. General Chaffee's brigade took up a position 
east of the village, ready to carry the town as soon as it should have been 
bombarded by the artillery. General Ludlow's brigade took up a position to 
the west of the village, in order to cut off the retreat of the Spaniards when 
they should be driven out and attempt to retreat to the city of Santiago. But 
with soldierly instinct and admirable effect he closed in upon the defences of the 
village, and his white sailor hat became a target for the enemy during the 
hours he hugged the blockhouses on his flank of the well defended village. 
Colonel Miles' brigade was held in reserve south of the village. 

" The artillery opened fire about seven a. m. The battery was entirely be- 
yond the reach of small arms' fire, and the enemy had no artillery. The 
battery opened with shrapnel at what appeared to be a column of cavalry 
moving along the road from El Caney toward Santiago ; then fired a few shots 
at the blockhouses, then a few at hedges where the enemy's infantry seemed to 
be located, and then fired a few shots into the village. At about eleven o'clock 
the battery stopped fire. During all this time a continuous fire of musketry, 
partly firing at will and partly by volley, was kept up in all parts of the lines. 
Our lines were drawing closer toward the enemy's works, and the brigade in 
reserve was brought up on the line. General Bates' independent brigade 
reached the position in the afternoon and also went into line, all closing in to- 
ward the village. 

" Between one and two o'clock the division commander directed the battery 
of artillery to concentrate its fire upon the stone fort or blockhouse situated 
upon the highest point in the village on the northern side, as it was the key 
point to the village. The practice of the artillery against this was very 
effective, knocking great holes in the fort and rendering it untenable. The 
infantry of Chaffee's, Bates' and Miles' brigades then made an assault upon the 
work and carried it. There were a number of small blockhouses on the other 
side of the village from which a strong fire was kept up for some time after the 
stone fort had fallen. Word was sent to the commander of the artillery to 
bring his battery down so as to take these blockhouses, but by the time the 
battery had arrived the fire ceased. But there was one blockhouse still occu- 
pied by the Spaniards, and at this the battery fired four shots, resulting in the 
loss of a number of Spaniards. Orders having reached the division commander 



GENERAL BRECKENRIDGE'S REPORT. 563 

in the meantime to withdraw his Ibices as soon as possible and to come into 
tonch with the division at his left, our troops were not moved into the village, 
but were ordered to bivouac near the main road leading to the city of Santiago. 

" The dawn of July 1 found the troops of Wheeler's division bivouacked on 
the eminence of El Pozo. Kent's division bivouacked near the road back of El 
Pozo. Grimes's battery went into position about 250 yards west of the ruined 
buildings of El Pozo soon after sunrise and prepared gun [jits. Grimes's bat- 
tery opened fire against San Juan a little before eight a. m. The troops of the 
cavalry division were scattered about on El Pozo Hill in the rear and around 
the battery, apparently without order and with no view to their protection 
from the enemy's fire. This condition rectified itself when the enemy, after 
five or six shots by our battery, replied with shrapnel fire at correct range and 
with accurately adjusted fuses, killing two men at the first shot. After some 
firing soon after nine a. m., Wheeler's division was put in march toward San- 
tiago. Crossing Aguadores stream, it turned to the right, under General 
Sumner, who was in command at that time owing to General Wheeler's illness. 
Scattering shots were fired by the enemy before the arrival of the first troops 
at the crossing, but his volley firing did not commence until the dismounted 
cavalry went into position, crossing open ground. Kent's division followed 
Wheeler's moving across the stream, and advanced along the road in close order 
under a severe enfilading fire. After advancing some distance, it turned off to 
the left. Lieutenant Orr (killed in battle) made a reconnaissance from a large 
tree on the banks of the stream. 

" At about one o'clock, after a delay of nearly two hours waiting for the 
troops to reach their positions, the whole force advanced, charged, and carried 
the enemy's first line of intrenchments. They were afterward formed on the 
crest and there threw up intrenchments facing the enemy's second line at a dis- 
tance of from 500 to 1,000 yards. In the charge the Second Brigade of Kent's 
division advanced upon the First, some of the regiment getting into the first line 
and reaching the crossing at about the same time as the regiment of the lead- 
ing brigade. At about one o'clock General Wheeler arrived at the crossing, and, 
after a brief stay, proceeded on the road toward San Juan with his staff, obtain- 
ing a good view of the troops as they were ascending San Juan Hill in the. 
final stage of the battle, and soon thereafter reached the command. 

" During the 2d of July there were a great many casualties, resulting not 
entirely from aimed fire, but from bullets clearing the crest of our intrench- 
ments and going far be3 r ond, striking the men as the} r were coming up together 
into position or as they were going back and forth bringing water, caring for 
the wounded, etc. Many casualties resulted from the fire of sharpshooters 
stationed in trees, with such thick foliage that the sharpshooters could not be 
seen. It seemed incredible that men should be so reckless as to remain within 
our lines and continue firing, and it is believed by many that what was reported 
to be firing from sharpshooters was simply spent bullets. But I and the mem- 
31 



564 GENERAL LINARES' REPORT. 

bers of my staff can testify to the fact that in many places along the road lead- 
ing up to the centre of our lines the sharp crack of the Mauser rifle could be 
heard very close to the road, and there were all the usual indications of the 
near and selected aim against individuals. Scouting parties were sent out 
from time to time to get hold of these fellows, and a number of them were cap- 
tured or shot, but it was not until a day or two afterward, however, that they 
were all cleared out." 

Report of the Spanish Commander of Santiago. 

" Official Cablegram, July 12, 1898. 

" To the Minister of War from the General-in-Chief of the Division of San- 
tiago de Cuba : 

" Although confined to my bed by great weakness and in much pain, the 
situation of the long-suffering troops here occupies my mind to such an extent 
that I deem it my duty to address your Excellency, that the state of affairs 
may be explained. The enemy's lines are very near the town on account of the 
nature of the ground : our lines are in full view from them. Troops weak ; sick 
in considerable proportion not sent to hospitals, owing to the necessity for keep- 
ing them in the intrenchments. Horses and mules without the usual allowance 
of forage; in the midst of the wet season, with twenty hours' daily fall of rain 
in the trenches, which are simply ditches dug in the ground without any per- 
manent shelter for the men, who have nothing but rice to eat and no means of 
changing or drying their clothing. Considerable losses; field officers and com- 
pany officers killed, wounded, and sick deprive the troops of necessary orders 
in critical moments. 

" Under these circumstances it is impossible to fight our way out, because in 
attempting to do so our force would be lacking one-third of the men, who could 
not leave, and we should be weakened besides by casualties caused by the enemy, 
resulting finally in a veritable disaster, without saving our diminished battal- 
ions. In order to get out, protected by the Holguin division, it will be neces- 
sary for me to come and break the enemy's lines, in order that my forces may 
break through in some other place, both acting in conjunction. For this opera- 
tion the Holguin division will require eight days, and will have to bring a 
large amount of rations, which it is impossible to transport. 

" The solution of the question is ominously imposed upon us. Surrender is 
inevitable, and we can only succeed in prolonging the agony. The sacrifice is 
useless, and the enemy understand this. They see our lines, theirs being well 
established, up. They tire out our men without exposing themselves, as they 
did yesterday when they cannonaded us on land, with such an elevation that 
we were unable to see their batteries ; and, from the sea, by the squadron, which 
had perfect range, and bombarded the town in sections with mathematical 
precision. 



HIERARCHICAL JEALOUSIES. 566 

" Santiago cle Cuba is not a walled town, a part of a country defended inch 
by inch by its own sons without distinction, by the old, the women, and the 
children, who are all inspired, and help, and even expose their lives, all being 
actuated by the holy thought of independence, with the hope of succor that 
they shall receive. The complete exodus of the inhabitants, insular as well as 
peninsular, includes the occupants of the public oflices with few exceptions. 
There only remain the clergy, and they to-day started to leave the town* with 
the Archbishop at their head. 

" The defenders here cannot now begin a campaign full of enthusiasm and 
energy. They came here three years ago struggling against the climate, pri- 
vations, and fatigue, and now they are placed in these sad circumstances, where 
they have no food, no physical force, and no means of recuperating. The ideal 
for them is lacking, because they are defending the city property of those that 
have abandoned it and of those that now are being fed by the American forces. 
The honor of arms has its limits, and I appeal to the opinion of the whole na- 
tion as to whether these long-suffering troops have not kept it safely many 
times since May 18, when they were subject to the first cannonade. If it is 
necessary that the sacrifice be endured, for reasons of which I am ignorant, or 
that some one shall assume the responsibility of the unfortunate termination 
which I have anticipated and mentioned in a number of telegrams, I faithfully 
offer myself on the altar of my country for the one, and for the other I will re- 
tain the command for the purpose of signing the surrender, for my modest 
reputation is of little value as compared with the country's interests. 

" Linares." 

Hierarchical jealousies seem an inevitable part of the campaigns. There 
was heart burning and recrimination even in Napoleon's perfectly com- 
bined general staff. In war these always result in disaster. For had the 
marshals fought the enemy and not among each other — Spain would 
never have proven the pit of doom Napoleon found there. In our Civil 
War the schisms among eminent generals for years rendered the army of 
the Potomac impotent. Nor is it easy to so adjust military mechanisms 
as to wholly avoid this personal strife. It is true that the presence of 
a civilian in the war office, inevitably tends to create jealousy — even 
mutiny — unless the civilian be of a most unusual type. It was not until 
the closing days of the war, that it was known outside the exclusive con- 
claves of the war office, that General Miles distrusted the direction of 
Secretary Alger. The President did everything to assuage the indigna- 
tion of the commander of the armies and keep the quarrel from becoming 
a public scandal. But while in Porto Rico — General Miles, as if con- 
scious of the slightly absurd anti-climax his campaign made, revealed all 
his griefs to the correspondent of a Western journal. The assertion will 



666 GENERAL MILES' STATEMENT. 

be seen gravely to compromise the good faith, not only of the Secretary 
of War, but all the official hierarchy directing the conduct of the cam- 
paign. The subjoined statement which will form part of the official his- 
tory of the war, was issued by the General-in-Chief, partly in his own 
words and partly in the third person : 

" After I arrived in Santiago with reinforcements for General Shafter and 
while I Was conducting the surrender negotiations Adjutant-General Corbin 
sent a secret dispatch to General Shafter assuring him that my coming made 
no difference in his command; that I did not go to supersede him. 

" This dispatch I did not see then. General Shafter did not mention it to 
me, but it was given out for publication in Washington. It might have caused 
great trouble and confusion except that it was based on an impossibility. 

" I no more superseded General Shafter than a Colonel supersedes a Captain. 
If a Captain were sent ahead with a company of soldiers and was later on 
joiued by his Colonel with the rest of the regiment the Colonel would not 
supersede the Captain ; he would simply take command of the entire force, as 
I did at Santiago. That this fact was recognized by the War Department is 
shown by all the subsequent proceedings, for the dispatches from there in re- 
gard to the surrender all came to me, and General Shafter was not mentioned 
in them. I have been commanding General of the Army of the United States 
ever since Mr. Cleveland appointed me such three years ago, and I have heard 
nothing to lead me to believe I have been relieved of the responsibility. 

" The dispatches from and to Santiago all show this, but they were very 
much mutilated and garbled in Washington when given to the public. Words 
and sentences were left out, which changed the meaning and significance of the 
messages, and several very important ones, which would have thrown a clearer 
light upon the situation, were entirety suppressed.'" 

Newspapers which reach here from the United States show that considerable 
discussion is now going on as to the credit for moving the Santiago army from 
Cuba back to the States. Secretary Alger claims, it appears, that he origi- 
nated the idea and had already made the necessary arrangements before the 
appeal sent from the commanding officers at Santiago reached Washington. 

" When called upon to submit a plan of campaign, he did so and put it in 
writing. In substance he took the stand, first, that every effort should be made 
to equip the Cubans and thereby enable them to harass the Spanish forces. 
The cry of 'on to Havana' should be encouraged, but when the transports, 
loaded with troops, were out of sight of land they should sail as straight as 
steam power could bear them to the gate of the Antilles and the key to the 
whole position, Porto Rico; then, having seized and occupied that island, a 
movement to Cuba was to follow by means of a strong cavalry force, which was 
to be organized and equipped by August or September. He contemplated that 
20,000 cavalry thrown to the centre of Cuba, cutting the Spanish forces in two 



GENERAL .MILES STATEMENT. 567 

and moving west to Havana, by the time the rainy season was over and it 
would be possible to manoeuver an army, we could move' against that city a 
well organized, well equipped, and well disciplined army, and complete the cap- 
ture of the Spanish forces. 

" The inclosure of Cervera's fleet in the harbor of Santiago changed condi- 
tions and made it necessary to move a military force to that point. General 
Miles, while at Tampa, organized the expedition, felt the importance of the 
enterprise so greatly that he requested permission to accompany that expedi- 
tion, or to immediately organize another to join it. This permission was not 
granted so far as accompanying that expedition was concerned, but authority 
was granted to equip a second ' for movement and operation against the enemy 
in Cuba. and Porto Rico.' However, before this expedition was equipped calls 
were made for additional forces to go to Santiago, and they were immediately 
forwarded. 

" The day he sailed with reinforcements (July ?) he sent the following de- 
spatch from Washington : 
" ' General Shafter, Santiago: 

" ' Take every precaution against surprise, and be on the lookout that the 
enemy does not turn your right flank and come in on the line of your commu- 
nications. Reinforcements are being sent forward as rapidly as possible, but 
you will have to be the judge of the position you are to hold until reinforce- 
ments can reach you. 

" ' Miles, 

"' Major-General, Commanding.' 

" General Miles sailed for Cuba. On July 11 at noon he reported his safe 
arrival to the War Department and at once assumed charge, reporting to the 
Secretary of War. 

" All of the subsequent business of the surrender was entirely in his hands, 
as shown by the fact that the War Department communicated with him direct, 
not even mentioning General Shafter's name in the numerous despatches. 

" Washington, D. C, July 13, 1898. 

" Major-General Miles : You may accept surrender by granting parole to 

officers and men, the officers retaining their side arms. The officers and men 

after parole will be permitted to return to Spain, the United States assisting. 

If not accepted, then assault, unless in your judgment an assault would fail. 

Consult with Sampson and pursue such course as to the assault as you jointly 

agree upon. Matters should be settled promptly. 

" R. A. Alger, 

" Secretary of War." 

" In the face of this situation, Secretary Alger, through General Ccrbin, 
sent a despatch to General Shafter, assuring him that General Miles did not 
come to Cuba to supersede Shafter in any way. 



568 GENERAL MILES' STATEMENT. 

" This despatch General Miles refers to as ' secret,' for he says he did not 
know it had been sent, not being notified from Washington and General Shaf- 
ter saying nothing about it. 

" On July 15 Shatter wired General Miles that the surrender was not as 
complete as he thought, and said, * Please do not go away with the reinforce- 
ments, as I may yet need them.' 

"Miles promptly replied by wire from Baiquiri that the surrender 'is com- 
plete ' and the Spaniards ' must surrender.' 

" On July 16 Shafter wired Miles that the surrender was finally complete, and 
General Miles replied through Adjutant-General Gilmore as follows : 

'" The Commanding-General is very much gratified to hear that the surren- 
der is complete. He directs that you telegraph anything of importance and 
the condition of your command daily.' 

" General Miles then reported the condition of affairs to the Secretary of 
War, with whom he had been in conference. In one of his telegrams to Miles 
Secretary Alger says : 

" ' As soon as Santiago falls the troops must all be put in camp as comforta- 
ble as they can be made and remain, I suppose, until the fever has had its run.' 

" Miles did not agree with Secretary Alger, for on July 21, in a letter, the 
General urged the return of the army to the United States as soon as possible. 
July 17, after the surrender was complete, General Shafter wired as follows to 
General Miles : ' Letters and orders in reference to movement of camp re- 
ceived and will be carried out. None is more anxious to get away from here 
than myself.' 

" It seems from your orders given me that you regarded my forces as part 
of your command. Nothing will give me greater pleasure than serving you, 
General, and I shall comply with all your requests and directions, but I was 
told by the Secretary that you were not to supersede in command here. I will 
furnish the information called for as to condition of command to Gilmore, 
Adjutant-General, A. H. Q. 

" Shafter, 
" Major-General." 

" General Miles promptly replied as follows : 

" ' Playa del Este, July 18, 1898. 

" ' General Shafter : Telegram received. Have no desire and have care- 
fully avoided any appearance of superseding you. Your command is a part of 
the United States army which I have the honor to command, having been duly 
assigned thereto and directed by the President to go wherever I thought my 
presence required and give such general directions as I thought best concern- 
ing military matters, and especially directed to go to Santiago for a specific 
purpose. 

" ' You will also notice that the orders of the Secretary of War of July 13 



GENERAL MILES' STATEMENT. 569 

left the matter to my discretion. I should regret that any event should cause 
either yourself or any part of your command to cease to be a part of mine. 

" ' Very truly yours, 

" ' Nelson A. Miles, 
" ' Major-General, Commanding United States Army.' " 

" Miles' arrival at Santiago, July 11, was not as a private individual nor as 
a visitor. Any pretense that he went there disrobed of his authority or oilicial 
capacity is too childish to be considered by sensible men. From the moment 
he arrived at Santiago he was responsible for what might occur. He arrived 
there with the Yale, Columbia, and Rita, loaded with infantry, and three ships 
loaded with artillery, besides those already disembarked. He designed to dis- 
embark the troops and artillery named on the west side of Santiago, as was 
understood before leaving Washington, and before he went ashore he made the 
necessary arrangements accordinglj r . 

" He then proceeded to the front, and after consulting with General Shafter 
a note was sent to the Spanish commander by General Shafter, saying, that the 
commanding General of the United States Army had arrived in his camp with 
strong reinforcements and would meet him between the lines at any hour agree- 
able to him. The reply of the Spanish commander was that he would meet 
him at twelve o'clock next morning. The meeting was held, and after some 
conversation between General Shafter and General Toral, General Miles frankly 
informed the Spanish General that he had left Washington six days before and 
that it was then the determination of the government that this portion of the 
Spanish army must be captured or destroyed. He also informed the Spanish 
General that his reenforcements had arrived with him ; that some of these 
forces had already disembarked and the remainder would be disembarked on 
the west side of the harbor, and that it was useless for him to contend against 
the inevitable. These transports could also be plainly seen by the Spanish 
from Morro Castle and other points. 

" General Toral replied that so long as he had rations and ammunition he 
had to fight in order to maintain the honor of the Spanish Army. In response 
to that he was informed that he had already maintained the honor of the Span- 
ish Army, and that further efforts would be useless, and would result in the 
wanton sacrifice of human life. He then said that he was waiting to hear 
from his government, and was informed by General Miles that he had already 
taken much time for that purpose, and would be given until daylight of the 
following morning, it being then three o'clock, to submit his final answer. He 
begged for longer time, and earnestly requested until twelve o'clock next day. 
This was finally granted by General Miles, the meeting dissolved, and the offi- 
cers separated. 

" On returning from this conference, a dispatch was received by General 
Miles from Washington as follows : 



570 GENERAL MILES' STATEMENT. 

" Washington, D. C, July 13, 1898. 
" Major-General Miles : 

" You may accept surrender by granting parole to officers and men, the offi- 
cers retaining their side arms, the officers and men after parole to be permitted 
to return to Spain, the United States assisting. If not accepted then assault, 
unless, in your judgment, an assault would fail. Consult with Sampson and 
pursue such course as to the assault as you jointly agree upon. Matter should 
be settled promptly. 

" R. A. Alger, 
" Secretary of War. 

" This," the statement says, " does not look as if General Miles was there as 
a visitor. He was charged with responsibility of ordering an assault upon the 
entrenchments and fortifications of an army, which, if successful, would have 
cost at least 5,000 lives, or of withholding the assault, if, in his judgment, such 
assault would fail. No greater discretion was ever given to any General com- 
manding an army, and, what is more, as will be observed, he was authorized to 
accept the surrender, which, in the interests of his subordinates, he generously 
declined to do, and went away, leaving all the honor to his next in rank, Gen- 
eral Shafter." 

Letter From General Toral. 

" On the morning succeeding the first interview, a letter was received from 
General Toral, of which the following is a literal translation : 

:< Santiago de Cuba, July 14, 1898. 
" General-in-Chief of the American Forces: 

"Honored Sir: His excellency, the General-in-Chief of the army of the 
Island of Cuba telegraphs from Havana yesterday at seven p. m., the following: 

" ' Believing the business of such importance as the capitulation of that place 
to be known and decided upon by the government of his majesty, I give you 
notice that I have sent the conditions of your telegram asking an immediate 
answer and enabling you also to show this to the General of the American 
Army to see if he will agree to await the answer of the government which 
cannot be as soon as the time which he has decided, as communication by way 
of Bermuda is more slow than by Key West. In the meanwhile your honoi 
and the General of the American Army may agree upon capitulation on the 
basis of repatriation (returning to Spain).' 

" I have the honor to transmit this to you that in case you may consider the 
foregoing satisfactory that he may designate persons in representation of him- 
self who with those in my name may agree to clauses of the capitulation upon 
the basis of returning to Spain, accepted already in the beginning by the Gen- 
eral-in-Chief of this army. Awaiting a reply, I am very respectfully 3' our 
servant. 

u Jose Toral, etc." 



GENERAL MERRITT'S REPORT. 571 

" At the meeting on the following day General Toral stated that he was pre- 
pared to surrender, with the approval of the Captain-General of Cuba, but it 
would require a little time to have his acts confirmed by the home govern- 
ment ; that, in the meantime, he was prepared to appoint commissioners to ar- 
range the clauses of capitulation. Not only this, he ottered to surrender the 
balance of his command, which had not been under fire during the campaign. 
This remarkable offer was on his motion, and was' in the nature of a surprise to 
the American generals present. However, at the conference of the day pre- 
vious, General Miles had reminded him that he had been tendered the most 
liberal terms ever offered to an enemy, that his fleet was destroyed, and that 
they were 3,000 miles from home. 

" Toral's offer could be accounted for in one of two ways — either that the 
troops were wanted at home to meet a threatened revolution, or that they 
wanted to get home, and regarded this as the only means of doing so at the 
expense of the United States. Whether Blanco and the rest of the Spanish 
forces in Cuba would have surrendered on the same terms is not now, and per- 
haps may never be known." 



OCCUPATION OF MANILA. 

Report op General Wesley Merritt. 

Under date of August 20th, General Merritt said : "In obedience to 
instruction from the President, I embarked at San Francisco June 29th, 
and reached Cavite, Manila Bay, July 25th. 

" The American fleet of warships, commanded by Rear Admiral George 
Dewey, was anchored in line off Cavite and just outside of the transports and 
supply vessels engaged in the military service. The distinguished Admiral 
above mentioned was in full control of the navigation of the bay, and his ves- 
sels passed and repassed within range of the water batteries of the town of 
Manila without drawing the fire of the enemy. 

" Brigadier-General Thomas M. Anderson, United States Volunteers, was in 
command of the military forces prior to my arrival, and from his report I 
learned that his headquarters were in Cavite, and that the troops were disposed 
as follows : 

" The Second Oregon, detachments of California Heavy Artillery, Twenty- 
third Infantry and Fourteenth Infantry occupied the town of Cavite ; while 
Brigadier-General F. V. Greene, United States Volunteers, was encamped with 
his brigade, consisting of the Eighteenth Infantry, Third United States Artil- 
lery, Company A, Engineer Battalion, First Colorado, First California, First 
Nebraska, Tenth Pennsylvania and Batteries A and B, of the Utah Artillery, 



572 GENERAL MERRITT'S REPORT. 

along the line of the bay shore near the village of Paranaque, about five miles 
by water and twenty-five miles by the roads from Cavite. 

" Immediately after my arrival I visited General Greene's camp, and made 
a reconnoissance of the position held by the Spanish, and also the opposing 
lines of the insurgent forces, hereafter to be described. I found General 
Greene's command encamped on a strip of sandy land running parallel to the 
shore of the bay, and not far distant from the beach, but owing to the great 
difficulties of landing supplies, the greater portion of the force had shelter 
tents only, and were suffering many discomforts, the camp being situated in a 
low, flat place, without shelter from the heat of the tropical sun or adequate 
protection during the terrific downpours of rain so frequent at this season. I 
was at once struck by the exemplary spirit of patient, even cheerful, endur- 
ance shown by the officers and men under such circumstances, and this feeling 
of admiration for the manner in which the American soldiers, volunteer and 
regular alike, accept the necessary hardships of the work they have undertaken 
to do has grown and increased with every phase of the difficult and trying 
campaign which the troops of the Philippine expedition have brought to such 
a brilliant and successful conclusion. 

" I discovered during my visit to General Greene that the left or north flank 
of his brigade camp extended to a point on the ' Calle Real ' about 3,200 yards 
from the outer line of Spanish defences of the city of Manila. The Spanish 
line began at the powder magazine, or old Fort San Antonio, within a hundred 
yards of the beach, and just south of the Malate suburb of Manila, and 
stretched awa} r to the Spanish left in more or less detached works, eastward, 
through swamps and rice fields, covering all the avenues of approach to the 
town and encircling the city completely. 

" The Filipinos, or insurgent forces at war with Spain had, prior to the ar- 
rival of the American land forces, been waging a desultory warfare with the 
Spaniards for several months, and were at the time of my arrival in consider- 
able force, variously estimated and never accurately ascertained, but probably 
not far from 12,000 men. These troops, well supplied with small arms, with 
plenty of ammunition and several field guns, had obtained positions of invest- 
ment opposite to the Spanish line of detached works throughout their entire 
extent ; and on the particular road called the ' Calle Real,' passing along the 
front of General Greene's brigade camp and running through Malate to Manila, 
the insurgents had established an earthwork or trench within 800 yards of the 
powder magazine fort. They also occupied as well the road to the right, lead- 
ing from the village of Pasay, and the approach by the beach was also in their 
possession. This anomalous state of affairs, namely, having a line of quasi- 
hostile native troops between our forces and the Spanish position, was, of 
course, very objectionable, but it was difficult to deal with, owing to the pecul- 
iar condition of our relations with the insurgents, which may be briefly stated 
as follows : 



GENERAL MERRITT'S REPORT. 573 

" Shortly after the naval battle of Manila Bay, the principal leader of tbe 
insurgents, General Emilio Aguinaldo, came to Cavite from Hong Kong, ami, 
with the consent of our naval authorities, began active work in raising troops 
and pushing the Spaniards in the direction of the city of Manila. Having met 
with some success, and the natives flocking to his assistance, he proclaimed an 
independent government of republican form, with himself as President, and at 
the time of my arrival in the islands the entire edifice of executive and legisla- 
tive departments and sub-division of territory for administrative purposes had 
been accomplished at least on paper, and the Filipinos held military possession 
of many points in the islands other than those in the vicinity of Manila. 

" As General Aguinaldo did not visit me on my arrival nor offer his services 
as a subordinate military leader, and as my instructions from the President 
fully contemplated the occupation of the islands by the American land forces, 
and stated that ' the powers of the military occupant are absolute and supreme 
and immediately operate upon the political condition of the inhabitants,' I did 
not consider it wise to hold any direct communication with the insurgent 
leader until I should be in possession of the city of Manila, especially as I 
would not until then be in a position to issue a proclamation and enforce my 
authority, in the event that his pretensions should clash with my designs. 

" For these reasons the preparations for the attack on the city were pressed 
and military operations conducted without reference to the situation of the in- 
surgent forces. The wisdom of this course was subsequently fully established 
by the fact that when the troops of my command carried the Spanish intrench- 
ments, extending from the sea to the Pasay road on the extreme Spanish right, 
we were under no obligations, by prearranged plans of mutual attack, to turn 
to the right and clear the front still held against the insurgents, but were able 
to move forward at once and occupy the city and suburbs. 

" To return to the situation of General Greene's brigade as I found it on my 
arrival, it will be seen that the difficulty in gaining an avenue of approach to 
the Spanish line lay in the fact of my disinclination to ask General Aguinaldo 
to withdraw from the beach and the ' Calle Real,' so that Greene could move 
forward. This was overcome by instructions to General Greene to arrange, if 
possible, with the insurgent brigade commander in his immediate vicinity to 
move to the right and allow the American forces unobstructed control of the 
roads in their immediate front. No objection was made, and accordingly Gen- 
eral Greene's brigade threw forward a heavy outpost line on the ' Calle Real ' 
and the beach and constructed a trench, in which a portion of the guns of the 
Utah batteries was placed. 

" The Spanish, observing this activity on our part, made a very sharp at- 
tack with infantry and artillery on the night of July 31. The behavior of our 
troops during this night attack was all that could be desired, and I have, in 
cablegrams to the War Department, taken occasion to commend by name those 
who deserve special mention for good conduct in the affair. (For particulars 



574 GENERAL MERRITT'S REPORT. 

of the action see the appended reports of the brigade commander.) Our posi- 
tion was extended and strengthened after this and resisted successfully re- 
peated night attacks, our forces suffering, however, considerable loss in 
wounded and killed, while the losses of the enemy, owing to the darkness, 
could not be ascertained. 

" The strain of the night fighting and the heavy details for outpost duty 
made it imperative to reenforce General Greene's troops with General Mac- 
Arthur's brigade, which had arrived in transports on the 31st of July. The 
dilliculties of this operation can hardly be overestimated. The transports were 
at anchor off Cavite, five miles from a point on the beach where it was desired 
to disembark the men. Several squalls, accompanied by floods of rain, raged 
day after day, and the only way to get to the troops and supplies ashore was 
to load them from the ship's side into native lighters (called. 4 cascos ') or small 
steamboats, move them to a point opposite the camp, and then disembark them 
through the surf in small boats, or by running the lighters head-on to the 
beach. The landing was finally accomplished, after days of hard work and 
hardship, and I desire here to express again my admiration for the fortitude 
and cheerful willingness of the men of all commands engaged in this operation. 

" Upon the assembly of MacArthur's brigade in support of Greene's, 1 had 
about 8,500 men in position to attack, and I deemed the time had come for final 
action. During the time of the night attacks I had communicated my desire 
to Admiral Dewey that he would allow his ships to open fire on the right of 
the Spanish line of intrenchments, believing that such action would stop the 
night firing and loss of life, but the Admiral had declined to order it unless we 
were in danger of losing our position by the assaults of the Spanish, for the 
reason that, in his opinion, it would precipitate a general engagement, for 
which he was not ready. Now, however, the brigade of General MacArthur 
was in position and the Monterey had arrived, and under date of August 6, 
Admiral Dewey agreed to my suggestion that we should send a joint letter to 
the Captain-General notifying him that he should remove from the cit} T all 
non-combatants within forty-eight hours, and that operations against the de- 
fences of Manila might begin at any time after the expiration of that period. 

" This letter was sent August 7, and a reply was received the same date, to 
the effect that the Spanish were without places of refuge for the increased num- 
bers of wounded, sick, women and children now lodged within the walls. On 
the 9th, a formal joint demand for the surrender of the city was sent in. This 
demand was based upon the hopelessness of the struggle on the part of the 
Spaniards, and that every consideration of humanity demanded that the city 
should not be subjected to bombardment under such circumstances. The Cap- 
tain-General's reply, of the same date, stated that the council of defence had de- 
clared that the demand could not be granted ; but the Captain-General offered 
to consult his government if we would allow him the time strictly necessary 
for the communications by way of Hong Kong. 



GENERAL MERRITT'S REPORT. 575 

" This was declined on our part for the reason that it could, in the opinion 
of the Admiral and myself, lead only to a continuance of the situation, with no 
•immediate result favorable to us, and the necessity was apparent and y<t\ 
urgent that decisive action should be taken at once to compel the enemy 
to give up the town, in order to relieve our troops from the trenches 
and from the great exposure to unhealthy conditions which were unavoid- 
able in bivouac during the rainy season. The seacoast batteries in de- 
fence of Manila are so situated that it is impossible for ships to engage them 
without firing into the town, and as the bombardment of a city filled with 
women and children, sick and wounded, and containing a large amount of 
neutral property, could only be justified as a last resort, it was agreed between 
Admiral Dewey and myself that an attempt should be made to carry the ex- 
treme right of the Spanish line of intrenchments in front of the positions at 
that time occupied by our troops, which, with its flank on the seashore, was 
entirely open to the fire of the navy. 

" It was not my intention to press the assault at this point, in case the 
enemy should hold it in strong force, until after the navy had made practicable 
breaches in the works and shaken the troops holding them, which could not be 
done by the arm}' alone, owing to the absence of siege guns. This is indicated 
full} 7 in the orders and memorandum of attack hereto appended. It was be- 
lieved, however, as most desirable and in accordance with the principles of 
civilized warfare that the attempt should be made to drive the enemy out of his 
intrenchments before resorting to the bombardment of the city. 

" By orders issued some time previously MacArthur's and Greene's brigades 
were organized as the Second Division of the Eighth Army Corps, Brigade 
General Thomas M.Anderson commanding, and in anticipation of the attack 
General Anderson moved his headquarters from Cavite to the brigade camps 
and assumed direct command in the field. Copies of the written and verbal 
instructions, referred to above and appended hereto, were given to the division 
and brigade commanders on the 12th, and all the troops were in position on 
the 13th at an early hour in the morning. 

" About nine A. M. on that day our fleet steamed forward from Cavite and be- 
fore ten a. M. opened a hot and accurate fire of heavy shells and rapid-fire pro- 
jectiles on the sea flank of the Spanish intrenchments at the powder magazine 
fort, and at the same time the Utah batteries, in position in our trenches near 
the ' Calle Real,' began firing with great accuracy. At 10:25, on a prearranged 
signal from our trenches that it was believed that our troops could advance, 
the navy ceased firing, and immediately a light line of skirmishers from the 
Colorado regiment of Greene's brigade passed over our trenches and deployed 
rapidly forward, another line from the same regiment from the left flank of our 
earthworks advancing swiftly up the beach in open order. Both these lines 
found the powder magazine fort and the trenches flanking it deserted, but as 
they passed over the Spanish works they were met by a sharp fire from a 



576 GENERAL MERRITT'S REPORT. 

second line situated in the streets of Malate, by which a number of men were 
killed and wounded, among others the soldier who pulled down the Spanish 
colors still flying on the fort and raised our own. 

" The works of the second line soon gave way to the determined advance of 
Greene's troops, and that officer pushed his brigade rapidly through Malate 
and over the bridges to occupy Binondo and San Miguel, as contemplated in 
his instructions. In the meantime the brigade of General MacArthur, ad- 
vancing simultaneously on the Pasay road, encountered a very sharp fire, com- 
ing from the blockhouses, trenches, and woods in his front, positions which it 
was very difficult to carry, owing to the swampy condition of the ground on 
both sides of the roads and the heavy undergrowth concealing the enemy. 
With much gallantry and excellent judgment on the part of the brigade com- 
mander and the troops engaged, these difficulties were overcome with a mini- 
mum loss, and MacArthur advanced and held the bridges and the town of 
Malate, as was contemplated in his instructions. 

" The city of Manila was now in our possession, excepting the walled town, 
but shortly after the entry of our troops into Malate a white flag was displayed 
on the walls, whereupon Lieutenant-Colonel C. A. Whittier, United States Vol- 
unteers, of my staff, and Lieutenant Brumby, United States Navy, represent- 
ing Admiral Dewey, were sent ashore to communicate with the Captain-Gen- 
eral. I soon personally followed these officers into the town, going at once to 
the palace of the Governor-General, and there, after a conversation with the 
Spanish authorities, a preliminary agreement of the terms of capitulation was 
signed by the Captain-General and myself. This agreement was subsequently 
incorporated into the formal terms of capitulation, as arranged by the officers 
representing the two forces, a copy of which is hereto appended and marked. 

" Immediately after the surrender, the Spanish colors on the seafront were 
hauled down and the American flag displayed and saluted by the guns of the 
navy. The Second Oregon Regiment, which had proceeded by sea from 
Cavite, was disembarked and entered the walled town as a provost guard, and 
the Colonel was directed to receive the Spanish arms and deposit them in places 
of security. The town was filled with the troops of the enemy, driven in from 
the intrenchments, regiments formed and standing in line in the streets, but 
the work of disarming proceeded quietly and nothing unpleasant occurred. 

" In leaving the subject of the operations of the 13th, I desire here to record 
my appreciation of the admirable manner in which the orders for attack and 
the plan for occupation of the city were carried out by the troops exactly as 
contemplated. I submit that for troops to enter under fire a town covering a 
wide area, to rapidly deploy and guard all principal points in the extensive 
suburbs, to keep out the insurgent forces pressing for admission, to quietly dis- 
arm an army of Spaniards, more than equal in numbers to the American troops, 
and finally by all this to prevent entirely all rapine, pillage, and disorder, and 
gain entire and complete possession of a city of 300,000 people filled with na- 



GENERAL MERRITT'S REPORT. 577 

tives hostile to the European interests, and stirred up by the knowledge that 
their own people were fighting in the outside trenches, was an act which only 
the law-abiding, temperate, resolute American soldier, well and skillfully han- 
dled by his regimental and brigade commanders, could accomplish. 

" Prior to the action on the 13th, general order No. 3, hereto appended, 
was issued, and a copy was sent to Aguinaldo's representative as an indication 
of the conduct that would be expected of them in the event that any bands of 
the insurgents should effect an entrance to the city. After the action, general 
order No. 6 was published to the troops as a sincere expression of my appre- 
ciation of their conduct. 

" The amount of public funds and the numbers of the prisoners of war and 
small arms taken have been reported in detail by cable. It will be observed 
that the trophies of Manila were nearly $900,000, 13,000 prisoners, and 22,000 
arms. 

"Immediately after the surrender my headquarters were established in the 
ayuntamiento or city office of the Governor-General, where steps were at once 
inaugurated to set up the government of military occupancy. A proclamation 
was issued and published in all the newspapers of the city in English, Spanish 
and native dialect, and one of my two very efficient brigade commanders, Gen- 
eral MacArthur, was appointed Provost Marshal General and Civil Governor 
of the town, while the other, General Greene, was selected for the duties of In- 
tendente General de Hacienda or director of financial affairs, the collectors of 
customs and internal revenue reporting to him. Lieutenant-Colonel "Whittier, 
United States Volunteers, of my staff, an efficient business man of long expe- 
rience, was appointed collector of customs, and a bonded officer, Major Whipple, 
of the Pay Department, was announced as custodian of the public funds, tc 
whom all Spanish money derived from any source was to be transmitted for 
safe keeping and disbursement under orders. 

" On the 16th, a cablegram containing the text of the President's proclama- 
tion directing a cessation of hostilities was received by me, and at the same 
time an order to make the fact known to the Spanish authorities, which was 
done at once. This resulted in a formal protest from the Governor-General in 
regard to the transfer of public funds then taking place, on the ground that 
the proclamation was dated prior to the surrender. To this I replied that the 
status quo in which we were left with the cessation of hostilities was that ex- 
isting at the time of the receipt by me of the official notice, and that I must 
insist upon the delivery of the funds. The delivery was made under protest. 

" After the issue of my proclamation and the establishment of m} r office as 
Military Governor, I had direct written communication with General Aguinaldo 
on several occasions. He recognized my authority as Military Governor of the 
town of Manila and suburbs, and made professions of his willingness to with- 
draw his troops to a line which I might indicate, but at the same time asking 
certain favors for himself. The matters in this connection had not been settled 



578 GENERAL ANDERSON'S REPORT. 

at the date of my departure. Doubtless much dissatisfaction is felt by the 
rank and file of the insurgents that they have not been permitted to enjoy the 
occupancy of Manila, and there is some ground for trouble with them owing to 
that fact, but notwithstanding many rumors to the contrary, I am of the opin- 
ion that the leaders will be able to prevent serious disturbances, as they are 
sufficiently intelligent and educated to know that to antagonize the United 
States would be to destroy their only chance of future political improvement. 

" On the 28th instant I received a cablegram directing me to transfer my 
command to Major General Otis, United States Volunteers, and to proceed to 
Paris, France, for conference with the Peace Commissioners. I embarked on 
the steamer China on the 30th in obedience to these instructions. 

" In view of my short occupancy of the office of Military Governor (sixteen 
days) I shall leave to my successor to report in detail and at length on the 
many important matters of administration and questions affecting trade and 
commerce, which it was not difficult to see would soon arise. 

" I may add, however, that great changes for the better have taken place in 
Manila since the occupancy of the city by the American troops. The streets 
have been cleaned under the management of General MacArthur, and the 
police, under Colonel Reeve, Thirteenth Minnesota, were most proficient in 
preserving order. A stranger to the city might easily imagine that the Ameri- 
can forces had been in control for months rather than days. 

" In concluding this report, I wish formally to declare my indebtedness for 
the success of the expedition to the brigade commanders, the division com- 
mander, the members of m}' staff, and my personal aids. While we were still 
in San Francisco these latter were sent to me to report to the commanders of 
the different organizations in camp, and were busy assisting in instructing the 
newly arrived troops. That they did good service in this direction I have the 
assurance of all concerned." 



THE ATTACK ON MANILA. 

General Anderson's Report. 

The report of General Thomas M. Anderson, commanding the Second 
Division of the Eighth Army Corps was made public October 1. The 
subjoined is from that document: 

" On the 1st day of July I had an interview with the insurgent chief, Agu- 
inaldo, and learned from him that the Spanish forces had withdrawn, driven 
back by his army, as he claimed, to a line of defence immediately around the 
city and its suburbs. He estimated the Spanish forces at about 14,000 men, 
and his own about the same number. He did not seem pleased at the incoming 



GENERAL ANDERSON'S REPORT. 579 

of our land forces, hoping, as I believe, that he could take the city with his own 
army, with the cooperation of the American fleet. 

" Believing that, however successful the insurgents may have been in guer- 
rilla warfare against the Spaniards, they could not carry their lines by assault 
or reduce the city by siege, and suspecting, further, that a hearty and effective 
cooperation could not be expected, I had at once a series of reconnaissances 
made to exactly locate the enemy's lines of defence, and to ascertain their 
strength.'' 

General Anderson then described the attack on Manila, which was under Mb 
immediate command, subject to orders from General Merritt, whose headquar- 
ters were on a dispatch boat : 

" The fleet opened fire at 9:30 A. M. The first shots fell short ; but the range 
was soon found, and then the fire became evidently effective. I at once tele- 
graphed General Mac Arthur to open on Blockhouse No. 14 and begin his at- 
tack. At the same time seven of the guns of the Utah batteries opened fire 
on the enemy's works in front of the Second Brigade and two guns on the 
right of this brigade opened an oblique fire toward Blockhouse No. 14. 
Riding down to the beach, I saw two of our lighter draft vessels approach and 
open on the Polvorin, with rapid-fire guns, and observed at the same time some 
men of the Second Brigade start up the beach. I ordered the First California, 
which was the leading regiment of the reserve, to go forward and report to 
General Greene. Going to the reserve telegraph I received a message from 
MacArthur that his fire on the blockhouse was effective, but that he was en- 
filaded from the right. I knew from this that he wished to push the insurgents 
aside and put in the Astor Battery. I then authorized him to attack, which 
he did, and, soon after, the Twenty-Third Infantry and the Thirteenth Minne- 
sota carried the advance line of the enemy in the most gallant manner, the one 
gun of the Utah Battery and the Astor Battery lending most effective assist- 
ance. 

" In the meantime, the Colorado regiment had charged and carried the right 
of the enemy's line, and the Eighteenth Regular Infantry and the Third Heavy 
(regular) Artillery, acting as infantry, had advanced and passed over the 
enemy's works in their front without opposition. The reserve was ordered for- 
ward to follow the Second Brigade, and a battery of Hotchkiss guns was di- 
rected to follow the Eighteenth Infantry. Going to the telegraph station, on 
the left of our line on the beach, I found the operator starting forward in the 
rear of the First California, and I moved forward until the instrument was es- 
tablished in the first house in Malate. The first ticking of the sounder in- 
formed me that General MacArthur was heavily engaged at a second line of 
defence near Singalong. 

" It was evident that the best way to assist him was to press our success on 
the left. I therefore, directed General Greene to connect, if possible, with 
General MacArthur by sending a regiment to the right. But the enemy 
32 



580 GENERAL ANDERSON'S REPORT. 

seemed determined, for a time, to give us a street fight, and the Colorado and 
California regiments were the only ones available. At this juncture the 
Eighteenth Infantry and the Hotchkiss Battery appeared to.be stopped by a 
broken piece of a bridge, but the Engineer Corps brought forward a portable 
bridge, and in a few minutes these organizations pressed through for the 
Malate-Ermita redoubts. Soon the men from Nebraska and Wyoming came 
on, shouting, for the white fiag could now be seen on the sea front, yet the 
firing did not cease, and the Spanish soldiers at the front did not seem to be 
notified of the surrender. In the meantime, the reserve had been ordered for- 
ward, except one regiment, which was ordered to remain in the Second Brigade 
trenches. The seven Utah guns were also ordered to the front, one infantry 
battalion being directed to assist the batteries in hauling the guns by hand. 

" The field telegraph wires, extending in a wide circuit to the extreme right, 
for a time gave discouraging reports. The front was contracted, the enemy 
intrenched and the timber thick on both sides of the road. Only two regi- 
ments could be put on the firing line. The Fourteenth Infantry was brought 
forward, but could not fire a sbot. Under these circumstances, I telegraphed 
MacArthur to countermarch and come to Malate by way of Greene's intrench- 
ments and the beach. This was at 1:25 p. m., but soon after I learned that 
MacArthur was too far committed to retire. The guns of the Astor battery 
had been dragged to the front only after the utmost exertions, and were about 
being put into battery. At the same time I received a telegram stating that 
the insurgents were threatening to cross the bamboo bridge on our right ; and 
to prevent this, and guard our ammunition at Pasay, I ordered an Idaho bat- 
talion to that point. It was evidently injudicious under these circumstances 
to withdraw the First Brigade, so the order was countermanded, and a dispatch 
sent announcing our success on the left. 

" In answer, the report came that Singalong had been carried and that the 
brigade was advancing on Paco. At this point it was subsequently met by one 
of my aids and marched down to the Cuartel de Malate, b}' the Calzada de 
Paco. I had gone in the meantime to the south bridge of the walled city, and 
learning that the Second Oregon was within the walls, and that Colonel Whit- 
tier was in conference with the Spanish commandant, I directed General 
Greene to proceed at once with his brigade to the north side of the Pasig, 
retaining only the W3'oming battalion to remain with me to keep up the con- 
nection between the two brigades. 

" A remarkable incident of the day was the experience of Captain Stephen 
O'Connor, of the Twenty-Third Infantry. With a detachment of fifteen skir- 
mishers, he separated from his regiment and brigade at Blockhouse No. 14, 
and, striking a road, probably in rear of the enemy, marched into the city 
without opposition, until he came to the Calle Real, in Malate. Along this 
street he had some unimportant street fighting, until he came to the Paseo de 
la Calzada, where, learning that negotiations were going on for a surrender, he 



GENERAL ANDERSON'S REPORT. 



581 



took post at the bridge of the north sally port, and the whole outlying Spanish 
force south of Pasig passed by this small detachment, hurrying in, intramuros. 
Captain O'Connor deserves recognition for the coolness and bravery displayed 
in this remarkable adventure. 

" Our loss in the First Brigade was three officers wounded, four enlisted men 
killed and thirty-five wounded. The loss in the Second Brigade was one en- 
listed man killed and five wounded, making a total of five killed and forty- 
three wounded. The antecedent loss in the trenches was fourteen killed and 
sixty wounded, making a total of 122 casualties in the taking of Manila. This 
is only part of the price we have paid and are paying for this success, for men 
are dying daily in our hospitals from disease contracted from exposure in camp 
and trenches. All hardships and privations have been borne by our soldiers 
with remarkable patience and cheerfulness. 

" The opposition we met in battle was not sufficient to test the bravery of 
our soldiers, but all showed bravery and dash. The losses show that the leading 
regiments of the First Brigade — Thirteenth Minnesota, Twenty-Third Infantry 
and the Astor battery — met the most serious opposition and deserve credit for 
their success. The Colorado, California and Oregon regiments, the regulars, 
and all the batteries of the Second Brigade, showed such zeal that it seems a 
pity that they did not meet foemen worthy of their steel. 

" My staff officers were active, zealous and intelligent in the performance of 
their duties, and the men and officers of the entire division showed the best 
qualities of American soldiers." 




PART III. THE CONDUCT OF THE WAR. 

To these foregoing official accounts of the campaigns, in order to make 
the narrative as exhaustively complete as human authentication by docu- 
ments can do, controversial statements issued by the various leading 
actors are herewith added by way of supplemental evidence. 

Secretary of the Navy, John D. Long to the President of the War Board. 

" Hingham, Mass., August 21, 1898. 
" My dear Admiral : In view of the practical ending of the war with Spain, 
and the well-earned relief from further duty to which the Naval War Board is 
now entitled, I cannot, though absent from the department, forbear to express 
to you, and through you to your associates on the board — Commodore Crownin- 
shield and Captain Mahan (retired) — the very high appreciation which the 
department has of the services it has rendered since the war began. That its 
members have been faithful and diligent in the highest measure goes without 
saying, for they are animated by the high professional spirit which distinguishes 
the navy and which they themselves have done much to stimulate and main- 
tain. But from my personal knowledge and observation I desire to add to this 
that equally marked have been the intelligence, the wise judgment, the compre- 
hensive forethought, and the unfailing competency to meet every exigency 
which have distinguished their deliberations and action. May it not be said 
that not one error has been made ? Proper control by the department has 
been exercised over all movements in the field, and yet at the same time, com- 
manding officers have been duly left to exercise discretion, and have never been 
hampered in their work. I do not know how your work, as member of that 
important board, could have been better done, or where in the arena of the war 
you could have rendered better service or deserved more honor. 

" Very truly yours, 

" John D. Long, 
" Secretary of the Navy. 
" To Rear Admiral Montgomery Sicard, United States Navy." 

A General Officer's Statement. 

A wounded general officer who withheld his name, issued almost im- 
mediately after the battle of Santiago the first distinct criticism of the 

(582) 



AN OFFICER'S STATEMENT. 5fc8 

conduct of the campaign. This was published universally and brought 
out responses from most of the persons in place made responsible for the 
shortcomings charged: 

" My position as a subordinate of those who equipped General Shatter's 
army and sent it to Cuba, and of those who planned and conducted '.the cam- 
paign against Santiago, renders me reluctant to give to the public anything 
tending to be critical of my official military superiors. So intense, however, is 
my conviction that 'somebody blundered ' — 'somebody' meaning more than 
one person — and blundered monumentally ; so strong also is my persuasion 
that all the ventilation and light possible should be let into such blundering — 
that I feel I shall be doing nothing more than a public service in stating some 
general undeniable facts which ought to be, and I believe are, patent to every 
soldier who participated in the campaign — except possibly those whose peculiar 
interest requires that the}' shall be blind. 

" There have been two colossal and criminal mistakes. The first and main 
one was the frightful lack of transportation facilities. To this deficiency alone 
can be traced nearly all the blood shed by our troops, and nearly all the disease 
which is now decimating our ranks more rapidly than did Spanish ritles and 
cannon. It was known by those who planned the invasion and attack, that 
the country was mountainous, practically roadless, and saturated with rain- 
floods ; that to move in such a country heavy ordnance, subsistence, stores, 
quartermaster's stores, hospital supplies, and all the other necessary equip- 
ment of a large army engaged in the investment of a hostile city miles away 
from the base of operations, required abundant means of transportation — 
vehicles and animals, but especially pack mules. Such knowledge, however, 
seems to have been of small utility to the responsible authorities ; for what 
happened? When the army landed and the advance began, it w r as found that 
transportation facilities were cryinglj r , even ridiculously, inadequate to meet 
the demands of the situation. I know that for the use of one whole division 
there were less than sixty pack mules. 

"What was the result? None of the essential things which should have 
accompanied the troops in their forward movement could keep pace with them. 
The men, indeed, could be marched on; but the food necessary to sustain their 
strength, health, and spirits, and fortify them against disease, the medical and 
hospital supplies to save their lives when wounded or fallen sick, the artillery 
essential to do artillery work and render it needless for infantry to go to 
slaughter against positions rendered almost as impregnable as nature and man 
together could do — these could not follow ; for there were no sufficient means to 
convey them. Some of all these things were got to the front, of course, but in 
miserably insufficient amount. Piled up at Siboney were the things we were 
perishing for and could not get. 

" Let us trace the consequences of this lack of transportation. One was at 



584 AN OFFICER'S STATEMENT. 

the army, undergoing such hardships from the weather, and fighting under 
disadvantages such as an army has seldom been called upon to encounter, was 
half-fed. To be half-fed in such circumstances meant, even in the comparatively 
short period of the siege, the undermining of the constitution of the hardiest 
men in the army and rendering them an easy prey to all the diseases with which 
the water, the air, and everything they touched were freighted. To be 
stricken in such condition has meant the slowest recovery ; to suffer a relapse 

which may be said to have waited beside the cot of each convalescent — has 

signified death. I have roughly estimated that already we have lost more men 
iby disease than by battle. With the sustenance we ought to have had the 
merest fraction of these men would have succumbed to disease ; and, with ample 
transportation facilities, and an intelligent use of them, that sustenance would 
lhave been ours. 

" Another consequence of this omission to provide the needed transportation 
was that the artillery could not be promptly brought up. And this leads me 
to the second of the criminal blunders committed — giving battle without the 
artillery, which the circumstances imperatively demanded. I shall not under- 
take to pronounce whether an adequate equipment of guns was sent with the 
expedition, because I do not know the exact number. I regard it as very 
doubtful whether there was anything like the quantity needed. But what I 
do know is that the battle of July 1 and 2 was properly an artillery fight; that 
we fought it almost without artillery, and that infantry was required to do 
what every military man — every man of common sense — knows ought to have 
been done with numerous and powerful batteries. We might not have had 
enough guns, from the standpoint of military judgment, if we had had in po- 
sition all the guns which the transports brought ; but if we had had all that 
were lying on the beach at Baiquiri or remaining in the holds of the vessels, 
we should have been able, in time at least, to have shelled the Spanish from 
the San Juan hill and El Caney. And if we could have done that, our fighting 
before Santiago would have cost us something like 250 in killed and wounded, 
instead of 1,700. 

" It is useless for any one to pretend that the state of the roads prevented 
the guns from being got to the front. Every man of experience knows that a 
corduroy road can be built through a swamp. With the force of men at the 
command of the General of the army, a corduroy road to the front could have 
been constructed in a comparatively short time, and then, even with our 
wretched lack of animals, we could in time have hauled the artillery forward. 
But no— McClellan waited until he was ready, Grant struck whether ready or 
not ; and ours was a General who proposed to profit by their examples — he 
would ' take Santiago in forty -eight hours.' After many more than forty-eight 
hours, he found himself brought to a dead standstill, and forced to telegraph to 
Washington for reinforcements. If he had continued the assault, God only 
Iknows what our losses would have been. 



SECRETARY ALGER'S LETTER. 585 

" Other features of mismanagement were evidently the loading at Tampa, 
where the stores, as I am credibly informed, got mixed up, leading to confusion 
and mistakes when they were unloaded to be sent to the front. One of the 
greatest oversights was shown in the failure to provide enough hospital ships. 
There was only the old Olivette, most miserably fitted up at the last moment. 
The Relief did not arrive until five days after the battle of San Juan. There 
should have been four or five such ships at hand before the fighting began. It 
may throw some light on the responsibility for the disgraceful state in which 
a number of transports reached the North to say that I have personal knowl- 
edge that those vessels were loaded and despatched by members of the surgical 
staff themselves. 

" To my mind, General Shafter and Surgeon-General Sternberg should have 
a heavy reckoning to make with public opinion." 



Secretary Alger's Statement. 

In a letter to Hon. Chauncey M. Depew, Secretary Alger said: 

" War Department, 
" Washington, Aug. 18, 1898. 
" My dear Mr. Depew : The great pressure of business has up to now pre- 
vented me from sending to you the statement you were kind enough to ask for 
as to what had been accomplished in the way of outfitting the army for the 
field, the conduct of campaign, &c. Also, the chiefs of divisions have been too 
much driven with work to compile the data required. One not in the midst 
of the work can hardly realize what an undertaking it is to call 125,000 men 
into the field at one time, coming from all the states, and to have them mus- 
tered and gathered in camps on so short notice, and this, too, when we had 
scarce any camp outfit for their accommodation, all having to be provided for 
by the War Department. As you know, when war was declared there was no 
equipment whatever for the volunteers in store. That this was successfully 
accomplished, with very few accidents, is a matter of record. Subsequent 
calls, including the regular army (which numbered about 27,000 men when 
war was declared), made a total of 268,500 men. To accomplish all in so short 
a time has been a great work. Of course, gathering this vast number of men to- 
gether, in a large measure under untrained regimental and company command- 
ers — I mean in actual field duty — the lack of knowledge as to sanitary condi- 
tions to be observed, the carelessness in not observing instructions which were 
furnished as to proper care of the men, has added greatly to the work of the 
Medical Department. Thus from the homes of 216,000 volunteers has been 
constant and great anxiety as to what might happen to their soldiers, and 
hundreds of inquiries made by letters and telegrams have been received every 
day concerning individual soldiers. 



586 SECRETARY ALGER'S LETTER. 

" The feeling on the part of those individuals that the War Department is re- 
sponsible for the care of their men individually has naturally aroused sympathy 
in case of sickness and death, and has created much sorrow. There is nothing 
young men in robust health are so prodigal of as their health, until it is gone. 
Men go into camp feeling that they can stand anything and everything, and 
cannot be made to believe to the contrary until stricken with disease. Every 
erfort has been made from the beginning to furnish every camp with all appli- 
ances asked for, but of course the commanding oflicers in the field are the ones 
who have the direct charge of these men. For instance, one army corps com- 
mander has given orders and enforces them, respecting sanitary affairs, and he 
has to-day but a fraction over two per cent, on the sick list. Others have been 
less successful, and the consequence is typhoid and other fevers have been bred 
and spread to a considerable extent. One regiment in the Chickamauga camp 
has a Colonel who enforces sanitary rules in his regiment, obliging the men to 
boil all the water they drink, keeping the camp cleanly, and the result, less 
than twenty-five sick, and his camp, too, is as unfavorable a place as any in 
the command. Others more favorably situated have ten times that number on 
the sick list. One of the regiments of the last call, not yet removed from its 
state, sends bitter complaints of typhoid fever. 

" Concerning the Santiago campaign, when the ships left Tampa they had on 
board three months' provisions and an abundance of hospital supplies. They 
had lighters to unload with at point of debarkation. These lighters were lost 
in a severe storm on the way. As soon as we were notified of the fact two 
tows of lighters were sent from Mobile and New Orleans, which were also 
overtaken by storm and lost. The navy supplied us with lighters, and one of 
these was wrecked. The army disembarked, getting oft' a portion of its sup- 
plies and medical stores, and immediately marched to the front to fight the 
Spaniards. The great difficulty of landing supplies subsequently was that 
wind sprang up every morning at ten and made a high surf, rendering almost 
impossible the use of small boats with one lighter, which was all the}' had left 
for this purpose. Of the packers who were employed, sixty per cent, soon fell 
sick, and heavy rains falling every da} r , the roads (if the} 7 could be called such) 
became impassable for vehicles. Pack animals had to be emplo} 7 ed to carry 
food to the army, which, being extended to the right around Santiago, in- 
creased the distance from the coast every day and made the task more difficult. 
However, the result and the subsequent sickness that has broken out in the 
army showed the great wisdom of General Shafter in moving forward to make 
the attack while his men were in vigor. It was a movement bordering on au- 
dacity, but it succeeded, and the persistence of the attack, I have no doubt, 
greatly disheartened the Spaniards. The result was one of the greatest vic- 
tories for the men engaged of modern warfare. The number of prisoners taken 
exceeded the attacking force by nearly two to one. 

" When yellow fever broke out and the fever list increased into the thousand 



GENERAL WHEELER'S STATEMENT. 587 

it was for a time supposed that it was principally yellow fever. The bringing 
troops north at once after the surrender under such conditions would have been 
certain death to a vast number, but upon inquiry it was ascertained that very 
few of these cases comparatively were yellow fever, when it was at once de- 
cided to bring the army home as speedily as possible. Everything that human 
ingenuity could devise has been done to succor that army— not the ingenuity 
of the Secretary of War, but the result of the combined counsel of those who 
have had a lifelong experience in the field. That some men have been neg- 
lected on transports coming home there is no doubt— all against positive 
orders, due perhaps to carelessness and negligence, but largely on account of 
not having the medical force to spare (many of whom were sick) from the 
camp at Santiago. Many medical officers sent with transports were taken ill 
on the way home." 

Secretary Alger then detailed the work done by the departments of the 
Adjutant-General, the Chief of Engineers, the Surgeon-General, the Com- 
missary-General; the Quartermaster-General, the Paymaster-General and 
the Chief Signal Officer; and concluded: 

" If you had a day or two to spare I would like to sandwich in a little work 
for you. I would like to send you these statements in detail, which I think 
would bewilder j'ou, if anything can. 

" Hoping you are having an enjoyable summer, I am, sincerely yours, 

" R. A. Alger. 

" Hon. Chauncey M. Depew, New York, N. Y." 



Major-General Joseph Wheeler issued a statement to controvert the 
clamors against the War Department: 

General Wheeler's Statement. 

" Headquarters United States Forces, 

" Camp Wikoff, L. J., Sept. 2. 

"The following is a sample of the letters we are constantly receiving regard- 
ing the soldiers in the camp : 

" ' In regard to my stepson, we feel very uneasy about him on account of the 
newspaper reports of the privation and suffering inflicted on the private sol- 
diers. Although he has never uttered a complaint since he has been in the 
army, we hear from other sources of the cruel and horrible treatment inflicted 
on our soldiers, under the pretense of humanity for our neighbors, and the 
whole country is in a state of terrible excitement. I should not be surprised if 



588 GENERAL WHEELER'S STATEMENT. 

the feeling should lead to a revolution of some kind, for I assure you I hear on 
all sides the most violent and bitter denunciations of the War Department 
and the administration. It is, indeed, a great pity that the glory of our 
triumphs should be dimmed by such a shameful thing as the ill-treatment and 
starvation of our own brave soldiers, while the Spanish prisoners have the best 
treatment that the country can afford.' 

" It will be seen that this letter says that not a word of complaint has been 
received from this soldier, and so far as my investigation goes, no complaint 
has been made by any of the brave soldiers that have added glory to our arms 
in the Cuban campaign. A great many anxious fathers, mothers, brothers, or 
sisters arrive here from all parts of the United States to look after their rela- 
tives, whom, they say, the papers tell them are suffering, and many of them 
have heard that their relatives are in a condition of starvation. Most of these 
people are little able to expend the money for such a journey, and they are sur- 
prised when they come here to find their relatives surrounded with everything 
to eat which can be procured by money ; and if sick in the hospital, they are 
gratified and surprised to find they are given every possible care. 

" In reply to a direct request that I will give the exact facts as I see them, 
I will state that every officer and soldier who went to Cuba regarded that he 
was given a great and special privilege in being permitted to engage in that 
campaign. They knew they were to encounter yellow fever and other diseases, 
as well as the torrid heat of the country, and they were proud and glad to do 
so. They knew that it was impossible for them to have the advantage of 
wagon transportation which usually accompanies armies, and yet officers and 
men were glad to go, to carry their blankets and their rations on their backs, 
and to be subjected, without any shelter, to the sun and rains by day and the 
heavy dews by night. They certainly knew that the Spaniards had spent 
years in erecting defences, and it was their pleasure to assault and their duty 
to capture the Spanish works. They were more than glad to incur the hard- 
ships and these dangers. They went there and did their duty, each man seem- 
ing to feel that American honor and prestige was to be measured by his con- 
duct. 

" The brave men who won the victories did not complain of the neglect of the 
government, but, on the contrary, they seemed grateful to the President and 
Secretary of War for giving them the opportunity to incur these dangers and 
hardships. They realized that in the hurried organization of an expedition by 
a government which had no one with any experience in such matters, it was 
impossible to have everything arranged to perfection, and they will testify that 
under the circumstances the conditions were much more perfect than any one 
would have reason to expect, and that the President and Secretary of War 
and others, who planned and despatched these expeditions, deserve high com- 
mendation. 

" One reason why our army was lacking in some respects in equipage was 



GENERAL WHEELER'S STATEMENT. 589 

that a telegram was received from Admiral Sampson stating that if the army 
reached there immediately they could take the city at once, but if there should 
be delay, the fortifications of the Spaniards would be so perfected that there 
might be great difficulty in taking it. On receiving this dispatch from 
Admiral Sampson the War Department directed the army to move at once, 
and as all connected with the army will recall, the orders were received after 
dark, and the army was in motion, had traveled nine miles, and was on the 
ships at daylight. 

" When the expedition sailed for Cuba it went there escorted by a large fleet 
of warships. At that time it was regarded as impossible for a merchant ship 
to sail on the ocean safely from any American port for Santiago, but as soon as 
the Spanish fleet was destroyed so that it was possible for unarmed ships to 
sail safely to Santiago, the generous people of the United States subscribed 
money without limit and despatched ship after ship loaded with luxuries and 
delicacies for the Santiago army, and everything that could be accomplished 
for their comfort was clone by the President and Secretary of War. 

" After the surrender had been completed and arrangements perfected for 
transporting the Spanish Army to Spain, the President and Secretary of War 
sent shipping to Santiago and transported our army to one of the most health- 
ful localities in the United States. The point selected by the Secretary of 
War was so situated that thorough protection was given the people of the 
United States from the danger of yellow fever contagion. The soldiers upon 
their arrival at this place received every care and bounty which could be pro- 
cured by money. The President and Secretary of War directed that their 
health and comfort should be cared for, without reference to expense, and in ad- 
dition the people within a circle of 100 miles vied with each other in shipping 
to them carloads and steamboat loads of luxuries of all kinds. 

" I have just finished my daily inspection of the hospitals. With rare excep- 
tions the sick are cheerful and improving. I have nurses and doctors to care 
for them, and in all my many tours I have not found a single patient who 
made the slightest complaint. It is true there has been suffering, and great 
suffering. The climate of Cuba was very severe upon all our soldiers, but in- 
stead of complaining, the hearts of those brave men are filled with gratitude to 
the people for the bounteous generosity which has been extended to them. 

" There is no doubt that there has been individual cases of suffering and pos- 
sibly neglect among the soldiers, not only in Cuba, but since their arrival at 
this place. Nearly 20.000 men were brought from a yellow fever district to 
the United States". It would have been criminal to have landed them and al- 
lowed them to go promiscuously among the people. It has been stated by 
physicians that if it had been done, yellow fever would have spread through 
many of our states. 

" To avoid such a catastrophe, a point which is more thoroughly isolated 
from the people than any other locality which could be found, was selected. 



590 GENERAL STERNBERG'S STATEMENT. 

By these wise means the country has been saved from a scourge of this fearful 
disease. Every one will realize that to land 18,000 men and put them on bare 
fields without any buildings whatever could not be done without some hard- 
ships. Over 5,000 very sick men have been received in the general hospital, 
and as many more sick have been cared for in the camps, and yet only about 
sixty deaths have occurred in these hospitals. 

" Tents had to be erected and hospitals constructed and preparations to sup- 
ply those 18,000 men with wholesome water, food, medicines, physicians, nurses, 
cooks, hospital furniture, wagons, ambulances, and other needs essential to 
caring for 18,000 men, fully half of whom are very sick or in a feeble physical 
condition. In addition to this, most of the bedding and much of the clothing 
was left in Santiago to prevent yellow fever infection. All of these deficiencies 
have had to be supplied. We had but one line of railroad to bring these sup- 
plies, and sometimes there have been delays." 



Surgeon-General Sternberg's Statement. 

The Surgeon-General in defence of his department, made public this 
document, which contains the whole case : 

" When the regular troops were ordered into the field, commanding officers 
of regiments were directed to take with them a complete field outfit and 
medical supplies for three months. I enclose herewith a memorandum showing 
the medical supplies which have been sent to the Fifth Army Corps at Tampa 
and at Santiago. The only requisition for medical supplies received from the 
Chief Surgeon of the Fifth Army Corps at Santiago is one dated July 23, 
1898, by cable, as follows : 

" Santiago de Cuba, July 23, 1898. 
" Surgeon-General United States Army, Washington : 

"July 23. — Wanted urgently: Quinine tablets, 1,000 bottles; strychnine 
tablets, 100 bottles; calomel and soda tablets, 100 bottles; calomel, 200 
grammes; nitric acid in two-ounce vials, 100 ; test tubes, 1,000; Fowler's solu- 
tion, 1,000. 

" V. Havard, 
" Major- Surgeon, United States Army, 

" Acting Chief Surgeon. 

" The supplies asked for were sent by the Olivette, in addition to a large 
quantity of medical supplies of various kinds, which I had ordered to be put 
on board that ship and delivered at Santiago. 

" I beg to remark that recent advices indicate that a majority of the cases of 
fever now occurring among the troops at Santiago are malarial in character. 



GENERAL STERNBERG'S STATEMENT. 691 

and that there has been an ample supply of quinine, which is the principal 
remedy required in this form of fever. I have made every effort to anticipate 
the wants of our sick and wounded soldiers in Cuba without waiting for requisi- 
tions; but, as we have had communication hy cable, the fault does not rest 
with me if, owing to the failure on the part of the Chief Surgeon of General 
Shafter's army to ask for necessary supplies, there has been a failure to meet 
the requirements of the sick. 

'' The hospital ship Relief, which arrived at Siboney on July 8, had on board 
medicines for twenty regiments for six months, calculated upon the basis of the 
field supply table, and large supplies in addition of the more important medi- 
cines, hospital stores, dressings, &c. If these supplies were inadequate there 
was ample time to inform me of the fact before the sailing of the Olivette on 
July 26. 

" I inclose a cop3 r of a letter just received from Captain Edward L. Munson, 
Assistant Surgeon United States Army, which fully accounts for any deficiency 
of medical supplies at Santiago." 

The report of Dr. Munson is as follows: 

" Tampa Heights, Fla., July 29, 1898. 
" To the Surgeon-General United States Army, Washington : 

" Sir : In view of the recent charges affecting efficiency of the army Medical 
Department at Santiago, and especially with reference to the conditions pre- 
vailing on the hospital transports sent north with wounded, I have the honor 
to submit the following facts, believing that my position as Adjutant to the 
Chief Surgeon, Fifth Corps, and as the officer in charge of the outfitting of the 
hospital transports Iroquois, Cherokee and Breakwater, may possibly give value 
to such report. 

" Drugs, medicines, dressings, instruments, hospital tentage and supplies were 
loaded on the transports at Tampa in quantities sufficient to meet the needs of 
the Santiago expedition. These supplies were divided up on the various ves- 
sels, each organization having its own equipment. While the bulk of the sup- 
plies was with the organized hospital, the regimental equipment was largely in 
excess of its needs, and was intended to be called in to supplement, if neces- 
sary, the equipment of these hospitals. 

" The landing on Cuban soil was made as rapidly as possible, each organiza- 
tion accompanied by the medical attendance assigned to it, and troops were 
pushed forward with no other equipment and supplies than could be carried by 
the soldiers. Having no means of transportation for even their field chests, 
the regimental medical officers had absolutely no resources at their command 
except such as were provided by the orderly and ship corps pouches and the 
first-aid packets carried b} r the soldiers. 

" Having only left their ships, the latter were promptly ordered out of the 
small bays at Siboney and Baiquiri to permit the unloading of other ships. 



592 GENERAL STERNBERG'S STATEMENT. 

These partially unloaded ships, in obedience to their orders, then proceeded to 
sea from five to fifteen miles, where they remained, hove to indefinitely. Such 
orders were given the transports carrying the reserve and the first divisional 
hospitals. The one carrying the reserve hospital, in obedience to its orders, 
proceeded to join the naval blockading squadron off Morro Castle, where it re- 
mained five days and nights, the other transports disappearing, if I was cor- 
rectly informed, for an entire week. 

" During this time the fight at Quasina had occurred, and large numbers of 
sick and wounded were requiring treatment. In the meantime a report of the 
conditions prevailing on shore was made to the chief surgeon, who promptly 
laid the case before the commanding General, requesting that a launch be placed 
under the control of the Medical Department for the collection of medical sup- 
plies from the various transports. It was also requested that a pack train be 
organized, in the proportion of one pack mule to each regiment, to transport 
supplies, especially the field chests, to the front for proper distribution, and it 
was suggested by the chief surgeon as available for the performance of these 
duties. 

" The exigency of the situation did not apparently appeal to the command- 
ing General, and for two days the Medical Department was unable to get trans- 
portation of any kind to the other ships or to the shore, although there were 
a large number of naval launches and other boats employed on various other 
duties. 

" On the third day, by order of the Adjutant-General, one boat was turned 
over to the Medical Department for the purposes above named, and at the same 
time an order was issued for land transportation to carry medical supplies to 
the front ' not to exceed one six-mule team.' 

" On getting into this boat with supplies from the headquarters' transport I 
was directed by sundry staff officers to take them on various errands. On my 
refusal to recognize their authorit}' the commanding General, who had appeared 
on the scene, personally revoked the previous order and directed, after the land- 
ing of the supplies already in the boat, that it should return without delay. 

" Presenting the order for land transportation to the Quartermaster on shore, 
I was informed that only pack mules had as yet been landed, that neither 
wagons nor harness had been brought ashore, and, finally, that the road was 
impassable for wagons. 

" After this boat had been taken away the chief surgeon was without any 
means of communication with the medical officers on shore or transports, of 
finding out their wants or of remedying the many already known to him. 
This condition of things remained until after the fight at La Quasina, at which 
time there were absolutely no dressings, hospital tentage, or supplies of any 
kind on shore within reach of the surgeons already landed. The news of the 
Quasina fight being reported to the chief surgeon, he was finally able to go on 
board the Olivette and send her to Siboney, where she received the wounded. 



GENERAL STERNBERG'S STATEMENT. 593 

" Within the following day or so the transports carrying the reserve and first 
divisional hospitals were found and unloaded of their hospital contents, the lat- 
ter hospital finally obtaining limited transportation to the front. After a cou- 
ple of days' duty on board the Olivette I was directed to put the Iroquois 
in condition to receive patients and to take the full capacity of the ship on 
board. While doing this I was able to set ashore considerable hospital tent! 
and supplies found aboard of her, and, having control of her boats, I was able 
to visit other transports in the harbor and hind medical supplies from them. 
While subsequently outfitting the Cherokee and Breakwater this work was con- 
tinued as well as opportunity and limited facilities permitted, getting supplies 
from perhaps a third of the transports composing the fleet. Outside of this, it 
is believed that no other regimental medical property was ever unloaded up to 
the time of my departure with wounded on July 10. 

" Appealing on several occasions for the use of a lighter or small steamer to 
collect and land medical supplies, I was informed by the Quartermaster's De- 
partment that they could render no assistance in that way, and the Medical De- 
partment was compelled to rely entirely upon its own energies and improvise 
its own transportation. 

" I feel justified in saying that at the time of my departure large quantities of 
medical supplies urgently needed on shore still remained on transports, a num- 
ber of which were under orders to return to the United States. Had the Med- 
ical Department carried along double the amount of supplies, it is difficult to 
see how, with the totally inadequate land and water transportation provided by 
the Quartermaster's Department, the lamentable conditions on shore could have 
been in any way improved. 

" The outfitting of transports for the reception of sick and wounded is a duty 
demanding thought and experience, and should never be intrusted to any one 
but a regular medical officer. It includes the proper policing of the portions 
of the ship to be used by the wounded, the removal of bunks and partitions to 
give space and air, the utilization of the ship's blankets, doormats, rugs and 
carpets to render the bunks more comfortable, the securing of extra supplies, 
such as canned soups and fruits, lime juice and oatmeal, the establishment of a 
mess and laundry, and the assignment of convalescents to specific light duties 
which materially relieve the overworked hospital corps. 

" Usually it is necessary to overcome passive resistance and opposition on the 
part of the crews and a tendency on the part of the Captains to disregard or 
modify orders. In several instances in my own experience this action of the 
crew amounted almost to mutiny, and was only to be dealt with by threats, a 
show of force, and in one instance by the use of the irons. 

" While executive officer at the general hospital of Fort Monroe, I learned 
officially that the Captain of the steamship Seneca positively refused to obey 
the orders emanating from your office, given him by the contract surgeon in 
charge, to proceed to New York — he remaining nearly an additional daj' at 



594 GENERAL STERNBERG'S STATEMENT. 

Hampton Roads with sick and wounded, and asserting that he would obey no 
orders given by the Medical Department. A similar experience of m} r own at 
Baiquiri, which had to be settled by force, emphasizes the fact that no on^ 
should be placed in charge of such a ship who is not accustomed to command 
men and enforce obedience. 

" With regard to the Red Cross Society, it would seem as if the lofty pur- 
poses of this organization were on the Santiago expedition subverted to indi- 
vidual interests. While at Tampa the Red Cross ship State of Texas was 
formally placed under the control of the Chief Surgeon, Fifth Corps, by Doctor 
Eagan, the representative of the society, he acting under telegraphic instruc- 
tions to that effect. Colonel Pope accepted this offer and directed that the 
State of Texas accompany the expedition of General Shafter to its destina- 
tion. 

"Although this order was fully understood by Doctor Eagan, the State of 
Texas did not accompany the expedition, nor did it arrive at Siboney until the 
forces had been landed, a battle fought, and our hospitals established and in 
working order. The first offers of aid made by this society dealt largely in 
generalities and manifested reluctance to subordinate the organization to the 
Medical Department. Too much praise cannot be given to the individual efforts 
of Doctor Lesser and the Red Cross nurses. Their work was untiring and un- 
selfish, and the assistance rendered by them was of great value. 

" In conclusion it is desired to emphasize the fact that the lamentable condi- 
tions prevailing in the army before Santiago were due to the military necessity 
which threw troops on shore and away from the possibility of supply without 
medicines, instruments, dressings, or hospital stores of any kind. 

" Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

" Edward L. Munson, 
" Captain and Assistant Surgeon, commanding Res. Amb. Co." 



THE PEACE COMMISSION. 

Early in September the Peace Commission met in Paris. The event 
elicited almost as much interest on the part of foreign statesmen as the 
extraordinary campaign that preceded it. The personnel of the two 
groups, — the appointees of the President, and of the Queen regent, were 
objects of varied speculation to the old hands of European diplomacy. 
There were no names among the men sent from Washington, that states- 
men abroad had been accustomed to hear associated with the intricate 
problems of Statecraft. 

The head of the United States Commission, William R. Day, had been 
but little heard of even in his own country, until the President lifted him 
from the obscurity of a local judgeship in Ohio to take the place of Assist- 
ant Secretary of State. The retirement of the veteran John Sherman had 
brought him to the great place of Secretary of State. In this exacting 
office he had dealt with the complexities of diplomacy with that masterly 
insight into interests and methods, which has always surprised the trained 
diplomats of the old world, who have been brought into relations with 
our improvised diplomats. It was Judge Day, indeed, who formulated all 
the demands that passed from the Washington Cabinet to the Spanish 
Government. One other man on the commission had the invaluable ex- 
perience of journalism and a foreign ministry to fit him for the work, 
Whitelaw Reid, who has been the editor of the New York Tribune since 
Horace Greeley passed away. He brought to the work a large knowledge 
of affairs and a familiarity with precedents, which supplemented any lack 
that Judge Day may have discovered. 

The other members of the Commission were Cushman K. Davis, Chair- 
man of the Senate Committee of Foreign Relations, and Senators Gray 
and Frye, members of that Committee,— all men of conceded ability but 
without special training in the intricacies of diplomacy. 

On the part of the Spaniards the three commissioners appointed by the 
Queen, were men of the first rank in experience and statesmanship. Senor 
Montero Rios, indeed, had been regarded as the highest exponent of the 
Spanish man of affairs. He brought to the painful work of signing away 
his country's colonial possessions, a dignity and patience that won the 
cordial approval, even of those opposed to him. 

Though the commissioners were engaged for weeks in deliberating on 

(595) 



Senator Cushman K Davis 



Senator George Gr 




THE AMERICAN PEACE COMMISSIONERS 



General R. Cere 



Senor J . De Garnicd 




5enorW.Z"De Villaurrutia 



5enor Buenaventura Abar2uza_ 



THE SPANISH PEACE COMMISSIONERS, 



Qdt 



598 THE PEACE COMMISSION. 

the various questions as they arose, the limitations of concession on both 
sides, were really p re-determined at the Capitals of the contracting parties. 
Early in the negotiations it was discovered that the Spanish Commission- 
ers placed a different interpretation upon the Protocol, or preliminary 
agreement that ended the war, from that accepted by the American mem- 
bers. But the Washington Cabinet had taken such care to incorporate 
in that document all the conditions laid down in the declaration defining 
the purpose of the war, that Spain was compelled to assent in principle 
and in fact to the surrender of all her sovereign rights in the Islands of 
Cuba, Porto Rico and Guam, and of all her other possessions in the 
Caribbean Sea. The consideration of these points was mainly formal. 

After the signing of the Protocol it was very generally conceded that 
the Philippines were to be the main subject of negotiation. In fact the 
^reat Oriental Archipelago seemed to afford almost the only basis for se- 
rious disputation. 

When the Commissioners had exchanged and verified powers in the 
gorgeous court of the Foreign Ministry in Paris, it was believed that the 
terms of a Treaty would be quickly concluded. It turned out, however, 
that the correspondence preceding the adoption of the Protocol, left the 
ground open for the widest divergence of interpretation, as to the clause 
dealing with the Philippines. 

In fact the termination of hostilities was delayed ten days or more in 
order that the Cabinet at Washington might be satisfied of Spain's readi- 
ness to accept at Paris, whatever might be the interpretation of our com- 
missioners. 

Even granting that the Protocol may, by some, be considered subject 
to two divergent interpretations, it still seems conclusive that the Sagasta 
government knew at the time of the signing, that the negotiations at 
Paris were liable to take exactly the course they have. 

Be this as it may, when in due course our representatives demanded 
the absolute cession of all the Philippines, the Queen's Commissioners 
brought the discussions to a halt to consult the Madrid Cabinet. 

Again Sagasta made an effort to secure the intervention of the Euro- 
pean powers. There was no mistaking the attitude of Europe. None of 
the powers cared to see our Republic intrenched in the Orient, on the 
coming battle-ground of the world. All the states of the Old World, pro- 
vided with armies and navies, are preparing for the partition of the 
Chinese Empire. The possession of the Philippines, therefore, has a 
pregnant meaning, to Russia, Germany, France and Great Britain. But 
the last mentioned power has from the first, favored the taking of the 



THE PEACE COMMISSION. 599 

Archipelago by the United States, — counting on equivalent advantages in 
the future. 

Spain having again failed in this final attempt to secure European in- 
tervention, — the negotiations at Paris were resumed. 

The suggestion from Madrid that the question of the Philippines he 
submitted to arbitration was promptly declined. The Washington Cabi- 
net sent peremptory instructions to Judge Day, the head of the Commis- 
sion, to accept no such suggestion, and to consent to no further delay. 

This brought the protracted negotiations more rapidly to a close. 

THE TREATY OF PEACE 

Signed at Paris, at a quarter to nine o'clock, on the evening of Decem- 
ber 10th, 1898, is a momentous document. It officially marks a transfor- 
mation of political geography, so complete and so quick, that it is scarcely 
equaled in the World's preceding wars. 

As a result it immediately and radically affects the condition of nearly 
10,000,000 people in the West Indies and the Philippines. To more than 
7,000,000 of these, this Treaty is a Proclamation of Emancipation as real 
as that promulgated by Abraham Lincoln, — for it abolishes their slavery 
to the Spanish Government, both incompetent and tyrannical. 

Whatever may be the final outcome of this War, as affecting the future 
of Spain or the United States, the results must be beneficial to the inhab- 
itants of all these islands. 

The scene was historic as the Spanish Commissioners sorrowfully, 
and the Americans with feelings of grateful relief, affixed their signatures 
to this document which embodies the results of the war, and officially 
marks its ending. The negotiations had consumed just eleven weeks. 

The Treaty is an elaborate paper of 600 pages, altogether too volu- 
minous for publication, complete, in a popular History of the War. From 
the seventeen articles, or lengthy sections the following is given as the 
text of the Treaty omitting only the circumlocutions of diplomacy: 

"Spain relinquishes all claims of sovereignty over and title to Cuba, 
and, as the island is upon its evacuation by Spain to be occupied by the 
United States, the latter will, so long as such occupation shall last, as- 
sume and discharge the obligations in respect to protection of life and 
property which may, under international law, result from the fact of its 
occupation. 

" Spain cedes to the United States the island of Porto Rico and the 
other islands now under Spanish sovereignty in the West Indies, with 
Guam in the Marian no, or Lad rone islands. 



fi °0 THE TREATY OF PEACE. 

" Spain cedes to the United States the archipelago known as the Phil- 
ippine Islands. 

" The United States will, for a term of ten years from the date and ex- 
change of ratifications of the present treaty, admit Spanish ships and 
merchandise to the ports of the Philippine Islands on the same terms as 
the ships and merchandise of the United States. 

REPATRIATE PRISONERS OF WAR. 

" The United States will, upon the signature of the present treaty, 
send back to Spain, at its own cost, the Spanish soldiers taken as prison- 
ers of war on the capture of Manila by the American forces. The arms 
of the soldiers in question shall be restored to them. Spain will, upon the 
signature of the present treaty, release all prisoners of war and all persons 
detained or imprisoned for political offences in connection with insurrec- 
tion in Cuba and the Philippines and the war with the United States. 

" On their part, the United Sates will release all persons made prison- 
ers of war by the American forces and will undertake to obtain the re- 
lease of all Spanish prisoners in the hands of the insurgents in Cuba and 
the Philippines. 

11 The United States will, at their own cost, return to Spain, and the 
government of Spain will, at its own cost, return to the United States, 
Cuba, Porto Rico or the Philippines, according to the situation of their 
respective homes, the prisoners released or caused to be released by them, 
respectively, under this provision. 

"The United States and Spain mutually relinquish all claim for indem- 
nity, national and individual, of every kind, of either government, or of 
its citizens or subjects, against the other government that may have arisen 
since the beginning of the late insurrection in Cuba, and prior to the ex- 
change of ratifications of the present treaty, including all claims for in- 
demnity for the cost of the war. The United States will adjudicate and 
settle the claims of its citizens against Spain relinquished under the stipu- 
lation. 

SPANIARDS RETAIN RIGHTS. 
" Spanish subjects, natives of the Peninsula, residing in the territory 
over which Spain by the present treaty relinquishes or cedes her sover- 
eignty, may remain in such or may remove therefrom, retaining in either 
event all their rights of property, including the right to sell or dispose of 
such property or its proceeds ; and they shall also have the right to carry 
on their industry, commerce and profession, being subject in respect 
thereof to such laws as are applicable to other foreigners. In the event 



THE TREATY OF PEACE. 001 

of their remaining in the territory they may preserve their allegiance to 
the crown of Spain by making before a court of record, within a year 
from the date of the exchange of ratifications of the treaty, a declaration 
of their decision to preserve such allegiance, in default of which declara- 
tion they shall be held to have renounced it and to have adopted the 
nationality of the territory in which they may reside. 

"The civil rights and political status of the native inhabitants of the 
territory hereby ceded to the United States shall be determined by Con- 
gress. The inhabitants of the territory over which Spain relinquishes or 
cedes her sovereignty shall be secured in the free exercise of their religion. 

"Spaniards residing in the territories over which Spain by this treaty 
cedes or relinquishes her sovereignty shall be subject in matters civil, as 
well as criminal, to the jurisdiction of the courts of the country in which 
they reside, pursuant to the ordinary laws governing the same ; and they 
shall have the right to appear before such court and to pursue the same 
course as citizens of the country to which the courts belong. 

SPANISH COPYRIGHT SECURED. 

" The right of property secured by copyrights and patents acquired by 
the Spaniards in the island of Cuba and in Porto Rico and the Philippines, 
and the other ceded territories at the time of the exchange of the ratifica- 
tions of the treaty, shall continue and be respected. Spanish scientific, 
literary and artistic works, not subversive of public order in the territories 
in question, shall continue to be admitted free of duty into such territories 
for a period of ten years, to be reckoned from the date of the exchange of 
the ratifications of the treaty. 

" Spain shall have the right to establish consular officers in the ports 
and other places of the territories sovereignty over which has been either 
relinquished or ceded by the present treaty. The government of each 
country will for a term of ten years from the exchange of ratifications ac- 
cord to the merchant vessels of the other country the same treatment in 
respect to all port charges, including entrance and clearance dues, light 
dues and tonnage duties, as it accords to its own merchant vessels not 
engaged in coastwise trade. This provision may at any time be deter- 
mined on six months' notice given by either government to the other. 

" It is understood that any obligation assumed in this treaty by the 
United States with respect to Cuba is limited to the time of the occupa- 
tion by the United States of that island, but the United States government 
will, upon the termination of such occupation, advise any government 
established in the island to assume the same obligations." 



WMBir OF CONGRESS 



0001^155304 g 



